Open Source Software Seeping Into the .NET Developer World

dp619 writes "In an interview, Microsoft Regional Director Patrick Hynds says that avoidance of open source components by a large part of the .NET developer population is abating. '...While some may still steer clear of the GPL, there are dozens of FOSS licenses that are compatible with Windows developers and their customers,' he said. Hynds cites NuGet, an open source package management system was originally built by Microsoft and now an Outercurve Foundation project, as an example of FOSS libraries that .NET developer are adopting for their applications. Microsoft itself has embraced open source — to a point. It has partnered with Hortonworks for a Windows port of Hadoop, allowed Linux to run on Windows Azure, and is itself a Hadoop user."

Comments

.NET Developers Have Long Favored Open Source

[CodeBuster]

The .NET developer community has long favored open source code, even though Microsoft hasn't always done much to encourage it. However, it seems that .NET developers never get even grudging respect from the likes of Stallman and other Linux hardliners out there. Ironically, this hostility towards .NET has played into the hands of those at Microsoft who sought to discourage the use of .NET outside of Microsoft's control. Yes, the patent laws are a problem but Microsoft has already made legally binding promises not to litigate their patents on core technologies and to be honest the whole patent system is so messed up that you're pretty much damned if you do and damned if you don't whether you use .NET or not. So, if you're worried about patents you should do what every sensible startup does and simply ignore them because (a) patents contain zero useful information for coders (they're written by attorneys for attorneys) and (b) knowing that a patent exists means willful infringement which is treble damages.

Re:.NET Developers Have Long Favored Open Source

[ADRA]

Long favored? Most people that I've known doing .NET work are wired into the frameworks Microsoft developed, glued on thier own proprietary bits and called it a day. Can you please leave some feedback on these very popular community driven OSS efforts in the .NET umbrella (outside of Mono which is a re-implementation of Microsoft's API's), becase quite frankly, I've never heard of any.

Re:.NET Developers Have Long Favored Open Source

[LurkerXXX]

Yeah, writing software for a living for a target audience using 90% of the computers out there is idiotic. Especially if that's part of the 99% of the target audience that's used to actually paying you for your software.

You might not agree with closed source software, but calling folks idiotic for writing software for a large market you can get paid for writing software for is..... idiotic.

Re:.NET Developers Have Long Favored Open Source

[shutdown -p now]

Whatever their desires may be, programming for a platform where open source has been intentionally denied even the possibility of existence and calling it open source

In what sense open source has been "intentionally denied even the possibility of existence" on .NET or Windows?

If you want to contribute to mankind you need to do it in a form that can be legally parsed by newcomers without paying licensing fees.

You mean, like Mono?

Re:.NET Developers Have Long Favored Open Source

[CodeBuster]

How about these to name just a few?

• ASP.NET MVC
• Castle Project
• NHibernate
• NAnt
• NUnit
• CruiseControl
• TortoiseSVN
• DotNetNuke

Plus tons more available on:

• CodePlex
• CodeProject
• Sourceforge

Re:.NET Developers Have Long Favored Open Source

[Dr_Barnowl]

That's not our beef with it - our problem with choosing BSD-style licenses for our code is not that the original code disappears, it's twofold

i) We granted the freedom to use our code to the person receiving our software. We'd like the person receiving it to be good enough to do the same.

ii) We put effort into the code - possibly a large community has put in many man hours of work. It doesn't seem fair that a corporation could take that code, roll it into a product, and make a profit selling it, without contributing to the community that created it in the first place, but that is what BSD permits.

Incidentally, GPL permits this too - it's all about distribution of the software. If a corporation builds software on GPL code, they only have to share their changes with whoever they distribute to. That could be themselves, or just their customers.

What GPL doesn't permit is that you forbid the recipients of your software from redistributing it, and it doesn't allow you to withhold the source code from them. BSD style licenses allow you to add these restrictions, GPL does not.

So corporations love BSD licenses because it lets them get something for nothing, with no obligation to give anything back. There are still benefits in contribution to BSD licensed projects - like a reduced overhead, why maintain your patches when the community will do it for you?

I work for the UK government in software development - I happen to think that GPL is an appropriate license for all government-funded software. If the people are funding it, all the people ought to be able to continue to benefit from it. Of course, corporations don't see it this way and refuse to play ball if you mention it - so the most common license we use is APL2. It irks me that they get a free ride from my taxes. That's not capitalism, that's socialism - for corporations.

Re:Get in on the action?

[LurkerXXX]

They called Linux a cancer, not open source software. They've used BSD software before. BSD folks are just fine with it, so there's no 'hijacking' involved.

Re:Get in on the action?

[shutdown -p now]

Microsoft is not quite a single monolithic entity, and different product units can and do have very different perspectives on FOSS. Developer division, in particular, is pretty much forced to deal with it, just because of the wide acceptance of it in the customer base today. Which is precisely why most FOSS you see coming out of MS does come from DevDiv, and a good chunk of that are various frameworks (e.g. ASP.NET MVC or Entity Framework). It's also catching on somewhat for other products - Python Tools for Visual Studio is one prominent example there, and is probably a better example of what a FOSS MS project should really be, since it goes beyond just publishing the code (under Apache license), and also takes external contributions.

(disclaimer: I am a developer on the Python Tools team, so you may I assume that I am correspondingly biased)

The other part of the company that has strong market pressure to be FOSS-friendly is Azure. If you want to compete with AWS and Google, you have let customers run things other than the usual 100% MS .NET/IIS/Windows stack, in various combinations - at the very least, people need Java and PHP (and more exotic stuff like Python and Node.js) for apps, and many also want Apache (or other server) rather than IIS, and Linux rather than Windows. Then they want the cloud service (storage etc) APIs to be available in those languages in client apps, as well.

On the other hand, I would be surprised to see a FOSS version of Windows or Office anytime soon - simply because most people buying and using it don't really care one way or another, so there's no incentive to strongly consider it.

Re:Get in on the action?

[PhrostyMcByte]

Sure they do make (and mostly give away) some FOSS software, but it's very little and you really have to look for it.

ASP.NET, Entity Framework, and Rx are all non-trivial Open Source projects by Microsoft which I use daily at work. They are all under the Apache License 2.0, not one of those ridiculous "shared source" licenses. They make use of existing third-party Open Source libraries. They manage the projects in the open and accept contributions from non-Microsofties.

Additionally, Microsoft has embraced NuGet, a third-party dpkg/apt for .NET libraries which has thousands of projects in it. It's integrated into the latest Visual Studio, and Microsoft uses it as their primary distribution point for nearly all of their Open Source projects.

Microsoft has a pretty shitty history when it comes to Open Source, but they really have turned over a new leaf on the subject. I think they've come to realize that it's better to foster than to dictate -- you're still using their product (.NET) in the end, after all. Some purists won't be happy with that, I guess.

What aversion to open source?

[MobyDisk]

I see no evidence that .NET developers have an avoidance of open source. The linked article actually seems to present evidence to the contrary. Paraphrasing here:

Q: Why have .NET developers been slow to adopt open source??
PH: The open source movement is not incompatible with the Microsoft development world...commercial software developers represent a big constituency among the .NET Framework community and based on my experience these shops are very cautious about incorporating open source libraries because the licensing...

So what they are really saying is that *commercial software developers* are hesitant to use open source because of licensing issues. That is probably true. That problem is not specific to Microsoft .NET developers, but spans languages and operating systems. That is very different from saying that .NET developers have not been averse to using open source. They use open source far more than their VB and C++/Windows API wielding predecessors. Here is a short list of open source projects I have used at commercial software companies off the top of my head:

log4net, sharpdevelop, nhibernate, nunit, nant, cruise control.net, all the Microsoft Patterns & Practices stuff, ninject, ...

Re:No, they falsely called the GPL license a cance

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it is actually quite arguable that the GPL does work like a disease or cancer passing on to those that use it. While this conjures up negative conotations it is in many ways how it is meant to work, it is supposed to be an incurable license that passes on to all offspring of the original. Those that favour GPL find this a great thing, those that don't find it inconvenient or in some cases down right unpalatable.

Re:Get in on the action?

[dbIII]

They've used GPL software such as gcc and delivered it complete with source and licence on Microsoft developer CDROMs. That was not long before the person near the top of the tree started screaming "developers, developers, developers!" and started undermining his own developers.

Re:Get in on the action?

[DickBreath]

Jim Allchin, when he was the number four guy at Microsoft, more than a decade ago, at about the time of the DOJ vs Microsoft antitrust trial, said that Open Source was un-American and that the legislators needed to be educated to the danger. That is from memory. As much as I hate to provide citations, let me google that . . . oh here . . .

Are Linux and Open Source Un-American?

Here is a bit . . .

According to the hive mind of Microsoft, open source should be made illegal. There's no way around it, this is the bottom line. Want to write your own code and release it into the community? Congratulations, come with us Sir/Madam, we have this nice little grey room for you. Don't worry about the bars on the windows, they are there for our protection in case you somehow manage to write a graphics viewer or a Perl script to terrorize the world.

Ordinarily, a mere underling like Mr. Allchin wouldn't be taken too seriously, but Microsoft speaks with one voice, and we all know who he is channeling.

As a member of the Linux and Open Source communities, I am appalled and outraged by his comments and wish to respond. The article shows Microsoft is scared. Very scared. So, will they build a better product? Nah, to hell with it, they'll just get the government to outlaw the competition.

Re:No, they falsely called the GPL license a cance

[drinkypoo]

Tell that to everyone that decided to fuck a girl (or guy, if that's your proclivity) with herpes.

You'd have a point if, before you fucked her, she handed you a "HERPES PUBIC LICENSE" that explained the risks and conditions of a quick unprotected bang.