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Microsoft Open Sources CoreCLR, the .NET Execution Engine

An anonymous reader writes: As part of Microsoft's continuing project to open source the .NET framework, the company has announced that CoreCLR, the execution engine for .NET Core, is now available on GitHub. CoreCLR handles things like garbage collection, compilation to machine code, and IL byte code loading. The .NET team said, "We have released the complete and up-to-date CoreCLR implementation, which includes RyuJIT, the .NET GC, native interop and many other .NET runtime components. ... We will be adding Linux and Mac implementations of platform-specific components over the next few months. We already have some Linux-specific code in .NET Core, but we're really just getting started on our ports. We wanted to open up the code first, so that we could all enjoy the cross-platform journey from the outset."

253 comments

  1. Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Aren't we bored with this, "Let's pretend to be more open than the next guy when actually we just want to create more lock-in" dance?

    It's like the way everyone non-MS touted moving to WEB APPS when what they really meant was, "Let's weaken the PC platform while having proprietary apps for all our mobile devices."

    1. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Aren't guys like you tired of bitching about Microsoft... for fucks sake, they are in the process of releasing their entire toolchain (from the bottom up) under the MIT licence.

    2. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aren't we bored with this, "Let's pretend to be more open than the next guy when actually we just want to create more lock-in" dance?

      Uhh, okay. What would you want to happen then? Would you like Microsoft to keep releasing open source or stop releasing open source?

    3. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would like NGWS to be ignored.

    4. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      The GPL would have put a lot of other people off - part of the point of the CoreCLR is so you can push out a custom CLR with your own app.

    5. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Ynot_82 · · Score: 0

      push out a custom CLR with your own app

      So less "common" and more "bespoke"....?

      Copylefted would at least allow all the different bespoke language runtimes to remain compatiable with each other

    6. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point of CoreCLR is to cause fragmentation?

    7. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not this time, the new guy has decided that selling Windows is no longer the lock-in platform that makes us all buy Microsoft stuff.

      Now, the Microsoft stuff they want use to all buy is services, and that means they have to supply said services across every platform possible.

      So, open source .NET in the hope that it'll be cheaper to port it (ie you'll do it for them) and then all those lovely .NET apps that use things like Azure and Microsoft Ads will be ported to Linux and Mac and Microsoft can reap the revenue from more people consuming their services.

      Its the same story really, only this time the lock-in has shifted slightly away from Windows.

    8. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll only get tired of bitching about Micro$oft 5 years after they cease all trading.

    9. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aren't we bored with this, "Let's pretend to be more open than the next guy when actually we just want to create more lock-in" dance?

      Exactly! They'll get everybody using it, then start moving more and more key components into Goo^h^h^hMicrosoft Play.

    10. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Yes. Its a tool to be used, nothing else.

    11. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by jonwil · · Score: 1

      Too bad "entire toolchain" doesn't include nice things like their C/C++ compiler and runtimes :(

    12. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

      The .NET runtime and compilers are unique, though, so it makes much more sense to open those up.

      Other platforms have fine C/C++ compilers. The MS compiler is not needed there. All you have to do is write ANSI C/C++ and - yay! - you're portable. In fact, note how Microsoft is actually working to improve other compilers' integration with Visual Studio, so they can more easily target Android and iOS, which is very cool.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    13. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You probably still won't STFU.

    14. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If it had been GPL i might have cared.

      Because the only "free" license options that matter are the ones you care about. Yes Comrade Commissar, we will comply with your thought police party line or whatever #fileitunderomfgurdumb

    15. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by microbox · · Score: 1
      --

      Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
    16. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by gatkinso · · Score: 2

      God forbid Microsoft be the one to do something cool.

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
    17. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 1

      Satya Nadella comes from the services side of microsoft. Not the side that wants to sell everyone a Windows 8 and Office 2015 license.

      Microsoft as a company is getting more hip and I really welcome their approach. They're finally catching up to, and surpassing, Apple in terms of sharing software.

      Reminder that Apple gave us CUPS, WebKit and a few other things. Apple could finally catch back up and release Swift under the BSD license. If I'm understanding things, Swift is more than just a vanity language. It's a language that's designed to get the most out of LLVM by being designed with LLVM in mind.

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    18. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Quarters · · Score: 2

      Given that you haven't stopped using the tired $ = S replacement in "Microsoft" almost 12 1/2 years after it was summarily called out as being childish and stupid (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/22/m) I seriously doubt your "5 years after" claim.

    19. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You make a great point. Everyone knows that since 7/22/2002 the correct spelling of Microsoft was not Micro$oft, but M$

    20. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neither CUPS nor WebKit were made by them, though.

    21. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's an alternative to whining about systemd.

    22. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Microsoft is a great company. Recent leadership changes are proving very positive. In light of this news it shouldn't be long before we have Java code compiling and running on .NET runtimes.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    23. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is the Slashdot that I know and love. Microsoft open-sources (truly, open-sources) a *huge* pile of very useful code, that you can use in *any way you want*. And all you can do is bitch about Microsoft offering services. You know, services that do useful things for people, that you have to pay for. Like that's a fucking crime -- providing a service and wanting money for it!

      Isn't this EXACTLY the open-source model that the OSS people push so often? "You can't make money selling software, but you can make money supporting it or running services." So Microsoft is doing EXACTLY what the OSS community has been pushing for years, but you're so blinded by bias that you can't even see that.

    24. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by LateArthurDent · · Score: 1

      Not this time, the new guy has decided that selling Windows is no longer the lock-in platform that makes us all buy Microsoft stuff.

      Now, the Microsoft stuff they want use to all buy is services, and that means they have to supply said services across every platform possible.

      So, open source .NET in the hope that it'll be cheaper to port it (ie you'll do it for them) and then all those lovely .NET apps that use things like Azure and Microsoft Ads will be ported to Linux and Mac and Microsoft can reap the revenue from more people consuming their services.

      Its the same story really, only this time the lock-in has shifted slightly away from Windows.

      That's not lock in. You described a company doing what it takes to extend the market in which they can compete in. That's fantastic. Of course they have a plan to make money out of this move, but that's a perfectly legitimate and ethical way of doing so.

    25. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by johanwanderer · · Score: 1

      J#.NET ?

    26. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      There's already a very strong Java killer on the market.

      Its name is Oracle.

    27. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Spot on. Microsoft really want you to get hooked on their services. That's why they're releasing Office apps for iOS and Android, an Android launcher that obviously uses Bing as the default search engine, why they're increasingly tying Windows to Bing, Cortana and OneDrive amongst others.
      I don't blame they as that's where it looks the money will come from but I don't like it because I like my software to stand alone and not depend on third party components.
      That's why I love Windows 7: I paid once for it and it's a piece of software that does what's supposed to, doesn't try to sell you a millon services and gets out of the way. Compare that to Windows 8 or 10 which for starters, makes hard not to login with a Microsoft account from the moment you install it and depends or tries to sell you many Microsoft services: The Windows Store, Bing, Cortana ... Also, I'd also like Google to let you pay with money, let you use their services with no ads and no spying in exchange for some dollars

    28. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, it could be a last ditch effort for .NET/C#. Aside from moving to SaaS, they likely lost the war against J2EE and LAMP.

      Cut your losses I'd say.

    29. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      Copylefted would at least allow all the different bespoke language runtimes to remain compatiable with each other

      Um, what?

      Say I decide to update the CLR to add the ability to define parameters on the new() generic type constraint. That would fundamentally break compatibility of apps that rely on the new functionality.

      Nothing about putting that out under MIT vs. GPL would make a difference in such compatibility. What makes a difference is placing a dependency on the change.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    30. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by spitzak · · Score: 0

      If it was GPL you would have to include the source code for your changes, thus if everybody else felt they had to be compatible they could use this to duplicate the changes in their version.

      This is the basic reason behind the GPL. You can argue whether it is a good idea or not, but you should at least not completely miss the point.

    31. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by spitzak · · Score: 1

      More to the point, if this really is the MIT license then (unlike the previous Microsoft "open source" licences) you can in fact combine it with GPL code. So he should not be complaining because it is just as useful as GPL code.

    32. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The GPL would protect you from Patent licensing concerns. MIT **WON'T** .

      It's not just Copyright you need to worry about, after all.

    33. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot to post anonymously you fucking retard.

    34. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Ravaldy · · Score: 2

      You nailed it on the head. MS can only benefit by getting developers to push their product. By making it available on all platforms they will maintain and even grow the DEV base they have. I've developed in many platforms and I have found that for businesses MS offers the best set of tools. Migration from one version to another has always been smooth for me especially if I continue to work with the same .NET Framework version. Even migrating from one major .NET version to another is usually smooth.

      The beauty of a library like .NET is that it is feature rich and very secure as long as it's patched when updates are made available. For the MS and Apple it's easy to make sure updates are pushed to clients. As for Linux I'm not sure how that works outside distributions that do not offer automatic updates.

    35. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by exomondo · · Score: 1

      If it had been GPL i might have cared.

      So create a fork and license it as GPL.

    36. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by patniemeyer · · Score: 1

      It's a reflex - Those of us who live through the 90's haven't quite gotten over how Microsoft screwed over the world and tried to kill the Web in its infancy. Do you like HTML5? Well, we could have had the modern web ~20 years ago if Microsoft hadn't deliberately set out to destroy it by licensing Java and making sure a slightly incompatible, outdated version of it was on every desktop for a decade. They spent a billion dollars to create IE and drive Netscape out of business. During the DOJ lawsuit in 1998 they produced emails with people literally talking about how they had to "pollute Java" in order to ruin cross-platform apps and web browsers that threatened their desktop business model. I don't think most programmers who have grown up with JavaScript have any idea that it was designed as an afterthought - to be a glue language to bind HTML to Java applications and Java based browsers with real application and security models.

      I am happy the Microsoft is turning over a new leaf and like C#, but I'm waiting for a big apology...

    37. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Too bad "entire toolchain" doesn't include nice things like their C/C++ compiler and runtimes :(

      We already have plenty of C++ compilers and runtimes. What is so much better about Microsoft's C/C++ compiler than say gcc or clang+llvm?

    38. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a reflex - Those of us who live through the 90's haven't quite gotten over how Microsoft screwed over the world and tried to kill the Web in its infancy.

      Well for fuck sake grow up and move on. Stop dwelling in your own self pity, the world changed and for some reason you're still clinging to the past.

      Do you like HTML5? Well, we could have had the modern web ~20 years ago if Microsoft hadn't deliberately set out to destroy it by licensing Java and making sure a slightly incompatible, outdated version of it was on every desktop for a decade.

      No we couldnt, the whole reason IE and Netscape both created their own proprietary extensions to HTML is because the standards committees were too dog slow to do anything. It took the standards committee 10 years, yep ten fucking years to get HTML5 done! You cant blame MS or Netscape for that obscene level of ineptitude.

      I am happy the Microsoft is turning over a new leaf and like C#, but I'm waiting for a big apology...

      Yeah well you'll be waiting a while, how about you go ask for it from the people responsible...oh right most of them dont even work there anymore.

    39. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      In light of this news it shouldn't be long before we have Java code compiling and running on .NET runtimes.

      We had that for many years now, in form of IKVM.

      But, outside of a few very narrow interop scenarios, why would you want to? Java already has a perfectly good runtime, what's the point of porting it to another which is not significantly (if at all) better?

      What you is, in fact, happening, is Microsoft supporting the existing Java stack as is - like this, or this. And it's not just Java, but also Python, and Node.js, and now R - and there will be more of that to come.

    40. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by dave420 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They're just trying to help you. Every time you use $ in Microsoft's name, your argument loses credibility. You look childish, and therefore your argument looks childish, and people will simply ignore you. We know Microsoft has a lot of money, and like nearly every other company on the face of the planet, they are trying to make more. This should not be a surprise to you...

    41. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      If it was GPL you would have to include the source code for your changes

      Not entirely. The GPL only requires you to provide the source code to people who use your software. If my software is only used internally within my company, then my company would be the only party who must be able to receive copies of the source code.

      if everybody else felt they had to be compatible they could use this to duplicate the changes in their version.

      But why would this matter? My application would have its own CLR, separate from anything else in the system. Another app could have its own CLR. There could be 50 apps on the system and they could all use their own custom CLR, if they so chose, and none of them have to be the slightest bit compatible with each other or with any CLR that is installed into Windows.

      Even if those 50 custom CLRs are identical, I may want to use my own copy just because I don't want some other app installing an updated CLR that could break my app. And this isn't some theoretical problem either. I use an obfuscator that relies on internal, undocumented behaviors of the CLR to do its dirty work. My application broke on several computers that installed a .NET update because it changed some of this behavior. My app wouldn't have broken if it had its own CLR.

      Now if I want to provide my custom CLR's source back to the community, I am completely free to do so. It doesn't matter if it's MIT vs. GPL vs. whatever open source license.

      This is the basic reason behind the GPL.

      No. The reason to use GPL is to allow you to provide your source code to your users, such that their use and/or derivation of that code must be provided to their users, and so on. It has nothing to do with compatibility (although increased compatibility is a side effect of most any open source license).

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    42. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by bitterblackale · · Score: 1

      I don't know how to live in a world in which Microsoft isn't code for a network of Bond villains. It just doesn't make sense!

    43. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by rhyous · · Score: 1

      The GPL isn't as free as the MIT. They made it more free.

      Why do you have a problem with "more free"?

    44. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by spitzak · · Score: 1

      I'm not using a $ in Microsoft's name. My complaint is that the knee-jerk responders are the ones who look immature. They should be able to ignore it but it apparently it sooo annoys them that they cannot help but make fools of themselves by responding.

    45. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is not. That ugly MIT license doesn't transmit patents. The GPL transmits patent rights, which lets you actually use the "open" code without fear of being sued for using it. This CLR ain't very open when Microsoft can sue you for using it.

    46. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're confused They made it less free. The MIT license doesn't cover patents. This CLR isn't very "open" if you can be sued for "patent violations" when you use it. The GPL expressly transmits rights to any patents covering the software, and is therefore more free by any sane definition. You MIT/BSD license people are so pitiful.

    47. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uhm, are you arguing that Java would have somehow got us to what HTML5 can do? Or that if not for Microsoft we'd live in a magical world where every app is cross-platform Java?

      As in the runtime that has such a bad security track record that all the major browser vendors turned it into click-to-play by default... In other words, "Thank you Microsoft"?

    48. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by strikethree · · Score: 1

      Hm. Microsoft has decided that breaking the law and acting in an unethical manner are valid methods of earning more money. Saying Micro$oft may reduce the reputation of the person arguing, but really, emphasizing that they would do anything to get more money through any means by using a simple symbol seems legitimate to me.

      And no, nobody is surprised that a company tries to make more money. What is surprising is the lengths that they will go to get it.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    49. Re:Oh look, it's the Java killer... by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Microsoft released patented source code for free? I guess Microsoft should be just as worried about being sued. Just because something is GPL'd doesn't mean you have access to the patents. Someone could just slap a GPL sticker on code and you'd be in just as much trouble. All the GPL does is keep people who release the source code from being able to sue the end users later, but not 3rd parties.

  2. Let the microsoft bashing begins! by Sklivvz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Because, you know, open sourcing by the devil has to be evil! :-)

    In all seriousness though, does this make .NET more open than Java? In other words, RMS-acceptable?

    1. Re:Let the microsoft bashing begins! by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      Because, you know, open sourcing by the devil has to be evil! :-)

      Hey, better late than never ... worked out with that whole Internet thing, huh? :)

    2. Re:Let the microsoft bashing begins! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Microsoft Research must be evil because open source, and nobody remembers Project Invisible which contains actual Windows source code.

    3. Re:Let the microsoft bashing begins! by Goaway · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If it's MIT licensed it's probably a bit too open for him.

    4. Re:Let the microsoft bashing begins! by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 1

      If it is the devil that is open sourcing it, by definition it has to be evil. Whether Microsoft is the devil is debatable though.

    5. Re:Let the microsoft bashing begins! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      Since it's MIT licensed, FSF can fork it and place it under GPL (not sure if v3 would work, but v2 should).

    6. Re:Let the microsoft bashing begins! by Optali · · Score: 1

      Dunno.

      I would like to know the implication of that.

      I of course abandoned all this "evil" thingy quite some time ago but I am very (and positively) interested in how this move will affect the whole IT landscape.
      At least we will see better implementations of Mono and maybe some older games and apps running on Linux ;)

      --
      -- 29A the number of the Beast
    7. Re:Let the microsoft bashing begins! by Goaway · · Score: 1

      Sure, if they want to maintain their own fork that nobody uses, they can do that.

  3. Okay so it is snowing and freezing outside by Kjella · · Score: 1

    ....but I didn't know I live in hell. No flying pigs or raining frogs though, so maybe we're good.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re:Okay so it is snowing and freezing outside by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *tips fedora*

  4. .NET applications on Linux? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

    So, I will be able to run pure .NET applications on Linux desktop? Interesting

    --
    Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    1. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by silviuc · · Score: 4, Informative

      If they're CLI, yeah, you'll be able to. You could already do that using mono. The problem is GUI applications that use WinForms which is not open-source and probably won't be for a looong time.
      MS likes Linux as a server, on Azure.

    2. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by kthreadd · · Score: 2

      It looks like Mono has support for WinForms. I've never used it though, and usually used GTK# for GUI development on Linux.

    3. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems VS2015 will include Xamarin, which is basically cross-platform UI toolkit (alternative to winforms).

    4. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by HyperQuantum · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem is not WinForms, but WPF. An increasing amount of applications use WPF because WinForms is considered 'deprecated' by Microsoft and people are encouraged to use WPF instead, which is the new 'hot stuff'.

      --
      I am not really here right now.
    5. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by PRMan · · Score: 4, Informative

      WinForms has worked fine on Linux for a long time. WinForms in Mono. Even better if you declare a folder named "C:" and then declare 5-6 folders named "Program Files", "Program Files (x86)", "Users", "AppData", etc. under that. If you declare the right folder scheme, a large percentage of Windows applications will run perfectly on Mono as is.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    6. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Sorry no, WPF is the new Silverlight. Microsoft wants you to use HTML5+js (which isn;t much different from XAML+c# anyway).

      They are pushing Cordova now, the Visual Studio addin that gives you support for that can do you cross platform GUIs (and on phone) and they are saying its the best way to create "Metro" apps. Expect more of this rather than WPF that is crippled partly by poor performance and partly by infghting between the Microsoft teams.

    7. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by inasity_rules · · Score: 1

      I have, on a fairly simple .NET app. Worked fine. But I can't claim exhaustive testing...

      --
      I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
    8. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by fractalus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is why I don't like developing for Microsoft's stack. They seem to want to throw everything out every few years and start over.

      Then again, it seems like the web business is like that, too. Damn. Doesn't anyone write non-disposable code any more?

      --
      People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
    9. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Funny

      If you declare the right folder scheme,

      What does this mean? Create directories? Or is this some strange disease you get along with mono?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NOT if I have ANYTHING to do with it! You're not allowed! Our benevolent free software overlord says I must stop you. You don't need choices, you need freedom!

      GPL3 or the HIGHWAY!

    11. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Keep in mind that, even with new APIs introduced, the old stacks still continue working just fine. WinForms or WPF apps will still run on Windows desktop machines decades from now, just like native Windows applications are still using Windows API calls written decades ago.

      Also, despite rumors to the contrary, WPF is still being actively developed, although it's probably fair to say it's "peaked" as a technology, and is now transitioning into a maintenance mode. I'd have no qualms about creating a new WPF project tomorrow - so long as you know you're only targeting the Windows desktop. There are benefits to using a mature technology, and WPF is pretty mature at this point.

      You really only need to use the new stack (WinRT) if you're planning to do cross-platform stuff across the entire Windows ecosystem (Metro/Surface/Mobile).

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    12. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      WinForms is not "deprecated". They merely introduced what they thought would be its replacement (WPF). The replacement was inadequate because:
      - It was only marginally compatible with existing WinForms code
      - It was radically different and required scaling a very steep learning curve, which is detrimental to development deadlines. This slowed its adoption drastically.
      - It didn't offer anything truly useful that couldn't be done with WinForms and a lot of glue code (developed decades ago, and is now battle-hardened production code)

      Then they backpedaled on the replacement, and introduced the replacement's replacement (HTML5 and JS). The replacement's replacement was inadequate because:
      - When you're used to working with strongly-typed languages, Javascript is a step backwards. This is even more true when you're working on a non-web app.
      - HTML5 is a pain to work with in a non-browser situation. This is likely because HTML5 is purpose built to work within a browser window. Ditto for Javascript, really.
      - There's no way in hell you can interface with years of tried-and-true libraries because they don't publish endpoints that Javascript can use. This is not a viable option for LoB development, which is what most MS-stack programmers are.

      Now they've backpedaled on the replacement's replacement. And they've introduced the replacement's replacement's replacement ("Universal" apps). The jury is out on this one. Unless it allows something similar to WinForms-style event-driven programming techniques, it's likely to fail. That's really the big sticking-point for most MS-stack developers. There's nothing that comes close to being as useful with as easy a learning curve as the hassle-free, automatic callbacks ("events") built in to WinForms.

      To be honest, WinForms works just fine and will continue to do so for a long time. Universal apps will have their niche, and may even be an adequate replacement for WinForms, but that remains to be seen. I'm actually hoping for it at this point. I want some successes and some progress out of Redmond instead of another failure or another not-ready-for-primetime research project.

    13. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Shados · · Score: 1

      Congratulations, you described the software engineering world in general. Tried JavaScript, Ruby or the JVM world lately?

      You -may- be ok with Python, i guess. But even that depends on what version you're looking at.

    14. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Zalbik · · Score: 1

      WinForms is considered 'deprecated' by Microsoft

      No, it really isn't. A substantial segment of the community assumed it would be deprecated when MS started heavily pushing WPF. Given that WPF has been around for 8 years now, it doesn't appear to be the "WinForms"-killer some thought it would be.

      That being said, WinForms all but officially in "maintenance-only" mode. I would be seriously surprised to see new features. However, this is different than being deprecated.

      There are signs that WPF is also heading into "maintenance only" mode, with the future being HTML5.

    15. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      I disagree. They saw that their technology was outdated and, instead of dragging it for years as a giant ball and chain, they started from scratch, for the better. WinForms was basically the Swing of the .NET world, but with a much better visual designer. All the UI was built into the code as objects and the auto-designer would often make a mess of it, while building it manually was a complete nightmare.

      WPF, in contrast, completely rebuilds the software stack in favor of a more cleanly separated MVC-ish approach, with the M and C being built in a regular .NET language while the view is entirely constructed in language-agnostic XAML (basically XML). This is very similar to how Android works, except Microsoft is typically more verbose than Android.

      While it does mean UI developers had to relearn everything, modern WPF applications can look far nicer, are much easier to work with and are more flexible than their WinForms counterparts. It's the same reason I applauded Microsoft's controversial decision to rebuild DirectX from scratch with version 10, but looking at how messy OpenGL development still is I can't help but find it was the right call after all.

    16. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Yep...in Java. When I first started coding in C#/.NET I was thrown back by how much outdated information was available (via Google search for "how do I" questions) because of frameworks and libraries that were obsolete. Java community is much more robust, accurate, and frameworks often live on through many years of improvements.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    17. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by msobkow · · Score: 1

      Which is nothing like Sun switch from AWT to JFC, or Oracle switching from JFC to whatever they're calling the GUI framework-de-jour.

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    18. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by AqD · · Score: 1

      Worked fine if you don't mind its windows 95 look and don't use non-English input methods.

    19. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is not WinForms, but WPF. An increasing amount of applications use WPF because WinForms is considered 'deprecated' by Microsoft and people are encouraged to use WPF instead, which is the new 'hot stuff'.

      With no skin in the game I looked into both WPF and WinForms a couple years ago for a small project. WPF was slow and quirky to the point of being unusable even relative to WinForms.

      What made matters worse many of the controls available to WinForms were nowhere to be found in WPF ones that did exist were significantly stripped down. No matter what the resulting application could not be made to also run as a windows service calling SCM directly where switching to WinForms the app just worked. I gave up trying to figure out why and left with a very poor opinion of WPF.

      Perhaps there is an overriding reason to use WPF I am simple ignorant of.. I don't really use this shit FFS I just hope the answer is not "It's new" ... Microsoft is absolutely scatter brained when it comes to development platforms. They don't seem to get some of us have better things to do than play musical chairs and simply avoid their latest and greatest altogether because of it.

    20. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by gbjbaanb · · Score: 2

      I do... but then my customers are public sector (police, EMS) who can;t afford to keep replacing their systems every few years.

      This is why I advocate multiple tier applications, like the MVC boys but without their "all-in-one project" mentality. Then you can write your server side stuff in a mature, reliable language and give some kids an API that they can use to build flashy GUIs in flash or javascript or whatever fashionable toy they like this month.

      And, strangely enough, everybody is happy with this approach - the kids who get to play with new toys, the elders who get to keep a solid application running, and the bosses who get reliability and flashy at the same time!

      So throw away your MVC frameworks and templates and embrace the service architecture.

    21. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get rid of iterative programming and forever betas (i.e. scrum), and you'll get some non-disposable code.

    22. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by maestroX · · Score: 1

      Then again, it seems like the web business is like that, too. Damn. Doesn't anyone write non-disposable code any more?

      It's astonishing to see every thread is controlled by SystemD.

    23. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Sperbels · · Score: 1

      I don't suppose you could provide a little help on how one actually utilizes HTML5 within a C# application. I've been looking for information on how this is done and found nothing. The best I came up with is a webpage loaded inside of a winforms browser control. But that's still using winforms. What am I missing?

    24. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MFC is still supported and updated, WinForms isn't going anywhere.

    25. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      And WinRT is essentially identical to XAML/WPF there are a few changes but nothing that notable.

      WPF was introduced in 2006, so unless the GP thinks that changing UI paradigms once every 20 years is too painful then I have very little sympathy. Apple has been on a similar schedule with Carbon -> Cocoa -> Cocoa Touch.

      It's also hard to take someone seriously when on the Linux front the probably top two options are: GTK which is infamous for its poor backwards compatibility between releases. Or Qt which is notorious for 2 steps forward and 1 step back on every release. "Hey we fixed fonts, but now columns are broken."

    26. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mono also supports the System.DirectoryServices namespace, but it's using the Novell LDAP library so is full of bugs.

    27. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      This is why I don't like developing for Microsoft's stack. They seem to want to throw everything out every few years and start over.

      Like what? COM is still supported now and was introduced over 2 decades ago, MFC is still supported and it has been around even longer than COM! They still support their C/C++ compiler and runtime, the .Net environment is all still there despite being over a decade old. Even with things they removed support for like F# or IronPython they have released as open source.

      Silverlight is an example of something that most definitely should have gone, just like Flash should, as it is primarily a proprietary plugin for web content and has been replaced by open source javascript and the standard HTML5, how can anybody but a rabid MS fanboy ever conclude that that was a bad thing? But they released the toolkit as open source anyway.

    28. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      WPF was having a near death experience in the Win8 time period, but it has been revived and is in active development again.

    29. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      The real problem with WinRT is that, far from being identical, it offers maybe about 50% of what WPF did. Half of the flexibility of bindings is gone, for example. A lot of customization points are gone, too, and there are too many things bolted on hard.

    30. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      You really don't want use WinForms as a basis for a cross-platform UI, anyway, because, as a toolkit, it is very Windows-centric. I mean, we're talking about something here that has an interface named IWin32Window, or struct Message with fields hWnd, message, lParam and wParam. It also uses pixel-based absolute layout (there are layout managers, but few apps actually use them), so you have to render controls in a way that matches their original dimensions on Windows, or things break. Ditto fonts.

      WPF is much better designed to be a cross-platform toolkit. The problem is that it's also much more powerful than WinForms, and that makes it complicated and hard to reimplement from scratch on another platform, so Mono guys didn't even try.

    31. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      As someone who has done both WinForms and WPF - a lot - I can assure you that WPF offers a lot of "truly useful" stuff. Like data bindings that actually work for non-trivial models, or layout managers that actually work and don't require writing hair-pulling code. And things like visual transforms, which let you very easily implement various "wow effects" in UI that people for some reason insist on these days.

      The rest of your post is just broadly incorrect. HTML5/JS was not a replacement of WPF - for one thing, it was only proposed as a platform for Windows Store (WinRT) apps, while WPF targets desktop apps, so there's no practical intersection between the two. For another, WinRT also introduced a new XAML framework, usable from C# and C++, alongside with the new HTML5/JS stuff. That framework is still there today (what you refer to as "universal apps"). HTML5/JS is also still there for universal apps. And WPF is still there for the desktop. And yes, WinForms is still there as well, and still supported, just not developed further.

    32. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by TechnoJoe · · Score: 0

      Keep in mind that, even with new APIs introduced, the old stacks still continue working just fine. WinForms or WPF apps will still run on Windows desktop machines decades from now, just like native Windows applications are still using Windows API calls written decades ago.

      This is exactly why I don't like Windows. They are unwilling to throw away the old crud and embrace new change. In just the past few years, Linux has completely gutted and replaced its sound system (PulseAudio), its init system (systemd), its default file system (btrfs), its default database server (MariaDB), its default web server (nginx; some distros), and its GUI (Wayland).

      And all the developers have to do is gut & replace the API's their applications currently use with the new API's for those new systems. Why do developers and administrators stubbornly cling to Windows? Complacent in their old ways? Or just plain lazy? I know it can't possibly be the amount of work involved. It's all open source, and the thousand eyes means that your share of the work is only five keystrokes.

      P.S. I hope the subtlety was not lost on you. On a more serious note, perhaps Linux developers should focus more on getting it right the first time, like the *BSD distros do.

    33. Re:.NET applications on Linux? by badkarmadayaccount · · Score: 1

      Ironically random linux distros probably have the best support in that sense - ancient fortran77 code runs alongside the latest RoR hotness without much issue. It's nice to have hoarders for repo maintainers. :)

      --
      I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
  5. How many... by Torp · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ... patents would I infringe on by just cloning their repo?
    Do they get to take my first born if i actually read the code too?

    --
    I apologize for the lack of a signature.
    1. Re:How many... by Torp · · Score: 1

      And on a more serious note, what is the actual license the code is released under?

      --
      I apologize for the lack of a signature.
    2. Re:How many... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

      Microsoft Patent Promise for .NET Libraries and Runtime Components

      Microsoft Corporation and its affiliates ("Microsoft") promise not to assert
      any .NET Patents against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale,
      importing, or distributing Covered Code, as part of either a .NET Runtime or
      as part of any application designed to run on a .NET Runtime.

      https://github.com/dotnet/core...

      The MIT License (MIT)

      Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation

      Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
      of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
      in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
      to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
      copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
      furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

      The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
      copies or substantial portions of the Software.

      https://github.com/dotnet/core...

      If you weren't so hung up on flogging a dead horse for mod points, MS has covered patents and licensing in the codebase itself.

    3. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Really? You couldn't just look? https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT
      MIT License

    4. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How fucking hard is it to click the link in the story?

      https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT

    5. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A good summary would save the need to look. It's obviously going to be the first question that the majority of people on this site have.

    6. Re:How many... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

      Promissory Estoppel makes it legally binding, new CEO or not.

    7. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually it is legally binding. It's called estoppel. Look it up.

    8. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's certainly admissible in court... but lets be honest, neither of us are lawyers.

    9. Re:How many... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

      Where did this myth that looking at code would expose you to legal issues come from? Has any court case actually gone through which hinged on a developer "poisoning" themselves for all eternity by looking at a competitors code base? I certainly haven't heard of any - even the original Compaq team did clean room implementations of the IBM Bios purely as a legal belt and braces, it wasn't based on any legal rulings in place.

    10. Re:How many... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      I think it was brought up in the Google v Oracle case where they had their little legal tantrum over Java copyright.

    11. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have absolutely received legal advice, from lawyers acting in their capacity as lawyers, not to look at code without checking with lawyers first, lest I accidentally introduce even the smallest speck of code with a restrictive or incompatible license.

    12. Re:How many... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Nope, followed that very closely, developer poisoning was not part of that case.

    13. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't look, i am not a lawyer and I don't know what legal liability that would expose me to :)
      And yes, the summary sucks. The actual license should have been in the summary.

      But you're willing to rely on Slashdot? Hmmm.

    14. Re:How many... by Microlith · · Score: 1

      So don't go using these sources in anything not a .NET runtime or application running on a .NET runtime. Even if you think it might help Python, Ruby, or some other application in some other language. It's open, but not really.

    15. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, and my auto mechanic advised me to come back in 5000 miles for more service. Sense a pattern?

    16. Re:How many... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      You could say the same about any GPL code - its open, but not really, because I can't use it in something non-GPL...

    17. Re:How many... by benjymouse · · Score: 2

      Oh, that promise is legally binding? I don't think so. And CEOs change.

      Yes, it is binding. Legal estoppel is the term. It is used when you act in good faith on a promise. It is in fact one of the strongest contract types you can imagine, because it is considered a one-sided contract that you do not even have to accept (like you do with e.g. license terms). If you can show that you acted on the promise, a patent case against you will be dismissed.

      --
      Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
    18. Re:How many... by Microlith · · Score: 2

      Except that people are willfully ignoring the massive patent exception to the MIT license. Even you gloss over it. At least the terms of the GPL are clearly spelled out, you don't know what will happen if you intentionally or even accidentally cross Microsoft's very limited patent grant.

    19. Re:How many... by LiENUS · · Score: 1

      Whether looking at a code base would poison you or not, checking a publicly disclosed source code license certainly wouldnt.

    20. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it comes from the patent world. Knowingly infringing on a patent allows for 3x damages instead of the normal 1x if you didn't knowing do so. So just randomly reading patents can end up bad for you if there might be something in one that you're possibly infringing.

    21. Re:How many... by Xest · · Score: 1

      Yes it was:

      http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

      Pay more attention next time.

    22. Re:How many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually you can use GPL'd software as a reference to implement a compatible non-GPL'd version. IIRC Stallman himself has approved this since it falls under the four freedoms.

    23. Re:How many... by Agripa · · Score: 1

      The Wikipedia article about clean room design cites several court cases:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

  6. bye bye Mono by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't need Mono no mo bro.

  7. I will believe it... by jaims · · Score: 2

    ... when I see a working fork in the wild. Like mysql mariadb. When I see that ppl or companies can do that, I will believe it is open source. Interesting times ahead :-)

    1. Re:I will believe it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why wait to see it in the wild, you can download and build it right now. Git is already showing a status of passing for both the debug and release paths.

      http://dotnet-ci.cloudapp.net/job/dotnet_coreclr_linux_debug/

  8. Now if they're truly evil by MikeRT · · Score: 1

    They'll make a patent pledge to never go after FOSS software and offer a program wherein anyone who uses .NET for commercial purposes can sign a mutual non-litigation agreement over patents pertaining to the use of .NET and the patents covered by the software implemented in .NET.

    1. Re:Now if they're truly evil by Virtucon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or they stop trying to license patents they hold on technologies that Linux uses. That would be a great gift for FOSS.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    2. Re:Now if they're truly evil by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Why would MS want to gift anything to FOSS as a whole? This isn't a case of joining one huge orgy, you can participate in open source in very select ways and areas without ever intending to support the entirety of the movement.

  9. Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't get Microsoft anymore. What are they hoping to accomplish by opening up .NET _and_ porting it to Mac and Linux? Have they given up on Windows?

    1. Re: Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is all about Azure.

    2. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      They'd better not give up on Windows. With OSX and Linux both being Unix-like, NT is the only major alternative OS for Unix-haters.

    3. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The only cross-platform AppStore? 20% profit per app at no cost. Imagine that... developers put apps into one store, app is available for android, ios, linux, windows, macOS, wp8? Seems great business plan to me.

    4. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not anymore. Unix-haters now have this systemd operating system designed for them.

    5. Re:Cool but... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 2

      The new Windows is the cloud, or Azure as they call it. They want you to write your GUI for a mobile/web/whatever device and then have it connect to all-Microsoft stuff on Azure, along with Microsoft adverts and Microsoft appstore etc.

      They've basically stopped believing that Windows is the only platform that gives them lock-in. Now all platforms will be lock-in!

    6. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, they're simply increasing the .net userbase. No longer will a .net webapp have to run on a windows server which was a huge put-off for many developers. This effectively means that Azure is a much more appealing option (or will be, rather) than it previously was.

      This means that many MS services/products can now be used for development even if you're not targeting a MS platform, for example would you really want to work on C# without using VS?

      The good thing is that they're expanding the platform aggressively in what most would consider to be a non-evil way: by increasing diversity.

    7. Re:Cool but... by lgw · · Score: 1

      /thread

      It really seems that's what's going on.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    8. Re:Cool but... by AqD · · Score: 2

      It's not they're giving up Windows. The entire PC desktop market is slowly dying and many things it did are now being done on tablets and phones and elsewhere instead.

      PC will become developers' and designers' workstation and nothing else, so Microsoft is probably trying to make its development toolset as popular as possible. It's the only area which won't be affected in foreseeable future.

  10. Too Late Really by Virtucon · · Score: 2

    Xamarian Mono or it's predecessor Ximian Mono. This is both a good and bad thing because while they're releasing the code, why aren't they working with Xamarian since they've already got a cross platform .NET environment? Or is this the old Microsoft with the Embrace, Extend, Eradicate mentality we're seeing here?

    I've used Mono for a long time and while it doesn't have all the frameworks, it's great if you want to C# code and go cross platform. It's still .NET 4 compatible and things like WPF aren't in there so YMMV

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    1. Re:Too Late Really by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

      The .Net CoreCLR is a rewrite of the .Net CLR from the ground up to support the specifics of the vNext project, so the Xamarian project isn't a good fit for this either as they would still need to start from scratch. Xamarian will still cover the entire CLR as it currently does (with some exceptions to the base class libraries), while the CoreCLR platform is a hugely stripped down and optimised runtime designed to be deployed with individual apps.

      For example, at the moment you deploy a .Net web app to IIS and it uses the .Net runtime installed server wide (in the GAC). With Mono, you deploy it to Apache and tell Apache to use the Mono runtime - but that is still Apache wide, so you can't run a second version of Mono without running a second instance of Apache configured specifically.

      In vNext, you deploy your web app and it comes with everything it needs to run - application code, CLR, Katana (or other OWIN implementation) and even a choice of web servers which are not dependent on the target server. This means you can run different versions of .Net for different applications, and can upgrade some without affecting others - because upgrading .Net is now as simple as redeploying the site. It also means no heavy dependency on IIS or Apache.

      Thats why its not an adaptation of Xamarian, because the two are quite different - however, at the recent NDC where they announced all this, they did announce much closer ties with Xamarian to work on Mono as the full implementation of .Net cross platform, so Xamarian aren't being left out to dry.

    2. Re:Too Late Really by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      This is both a good and bad thing because while they're releasing the code, why aren't they working with Xamarian since they've already got a cross platform .NET environment?

      There's nothing about about competition in OSS. If the license is truly open then they'll be able to use any bits of the code they want. So, is it?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Too Late Really by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      The CoreCLR is under the MIT license, is that open enough for you? Mono is a mixture of MIT X11, GPL, LGPL and commercial, so it looks like Xamarian can take from the CoreCLR but CoreCLR can't take from Mono.

    4. Re:Too Late Really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It always cracks me up how many claim dynamic linking is the best but every serious product oriented firm is trying hard to reimplement static linking so that dependencies are not the typical PITA as they usually are, especially for legacy systems or environments you don't want to touch ever again, for whatever reason.

    5. Re:Too Late Really by dissy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Xamarian Mono or it's predecessor Ximian Mono. This is both a good and bad thing because while they're releasing the code, why aren't they working with Xamarian since they've already got a cross platform .NET environment?

      An interview with Miguel De Icaza (creator of Mono and co-founder of Xamarin) on that very question:
      Microsoft .NET released from its Windows chains... but what ABOUT MONO?

    6. Re:Too Late Really by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      Xamarin*

    7. Re:Too Late Really by drinkypoo · · Score: 0

      The CoreCLR is under the MIT license, is that open enough for you?

      It was a rhetorical question. Is yours?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Too Late Really by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Or, you know, maybe the first step in co-operating is to release what they have and then see what they can share? Or perhaps they want there to be multiple .NET CLRs available to provide some diversity.

      Maybe it is part of an evil plot, but it's a bit early to leap to that conclusion.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:Too Late Really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, you know, maybe the first step in co-operating is to release what they have and then see what they can share? Or perhaps they want there to be multiple .NET CLRs available to provide some diversity.

      Maybe it is part of an evil plot, but it's a bit early to leap to that conclusion.

      This is what Microsoft said about Mono back when they made the original announcement:

      With .NET Core we’re able to develop an entire .NET stack as a full open source project. Thus, having to maintain separate forks will no longer be necessary: together with the Mono community we’ll make .NET Core great for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX. This also enables the Mono community to innovate on top of the leaner .NET Core stack as well as taking it to environments that Microsoft isn’t interested in.

    10. Re: Too Late Really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      then you are in the ms patent trap. see the android java oracle larry case.
      dont even look at their stuff or your brain will be infected with their patented technologies.
      and dont tell me this being a theory. just look at the royalties paid by each and every android device maker to ms.

    11. Re: Too Late Really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      as soon as your product with .net is in wide use, our legal vultures will zero in on your business.

    12. Re:Too Late Really by AqD · · Score: 1

      > Or is this the old Microsoft with the Embrace, Extend, Eradicate mentality we're seeing here?

      Isn't this standard strategy in industry? Either you're doing that or you're stupid beyond belief.

    13. Re:Too Late Really by Virtucon · · Score: 1

      to there's plunder, pillage and destroy that works for oil and natural gas companies
      there's take, take and eradicate for banks
      there's snoop, spy, sell which is great for Google ;-)

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  11. mod parent up by stoploss · · Score: 4, Informative

    Aren't guys like you tired of bitching about Microsoft... for fucks sake, they are in the process of releasing their entire toolchain (from the bottom up) under the MIT licence.

    Parent is actually insightful. Naturally, I didn't RTFA, but the summary should have mentioned the license. I assumed this was yet another MS "open source" release under one of their shitty proprietary licenses (you know, the kind of "open source" that is so restrictive it practically comes with an NDA).

    Using a Free license like MIT actually makes this more than an empty gesture. Yes, I actually confirmed the LICENSE.txt on the github project is MIT License.

    1. Re:mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using a Free license like MIT actually makes this more than an empty gesture.

      Right. Because it's not "Stallman Approved."

    2. Re:mod parent up by StormReaver · · Score: 0, Troll

      Parent is actually insightful.

      No, he's not. He is completely ignorant of history. Even if you can't see it right now, there is trap hidden somewhere in Microsoft's actions. There is ALWAYS a hidden trap in any apparently-friendly action Microsoft takes. You either see it up front and avoid Microsoft like the plague that it is, or you fall victim to the trap after it's sprung.

      Don't any of you remember Microsoft's last promise to not sue over Dot Net runtime patents?! On the surface, it seemed like Microsoft had turned a corner away from the Dark Side. But a closer analysis revealed that Microsoft's promise only extended to one very specific version of the Dot Net runtime, which was a version that was quickly superceded by the next version of the Dot Net runtime.

      The trap was that we were meant to believe that we were covered by the patent pledge for the Dot Net runtime. However, if you tried to implement Microsoft's superceding version, the patent pledge no longer applied.

      Rather than trying to figure out whether you're the dinner guest or the dinner in the wolf's lair, it's just far safer to stay away from the wolf altogether. No one ever got eaten by staying away from Microsoft.

    3. Re:mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Okay, I'll bite: how many entities has MS sued for .net patent violations on the subsequent versions, as you referenced? It's been the better part of a decade now, right? No doubt they have sprung their trap...?

      Also, how many cases have there been where a copyright license like MIT has been retroactively revoked (I mean, that would be the textbook application of promissory estoppel).

    4. Re:mod parent up by Marginal+Coward · · Score: 1

      There is ALWAYS a hidden trap in any apparently-friendly action Microsoft takes.

      Yes, and there will always be someone who sees a conspiracy in everything they do. Let's assume their real conspiracy is to make money. Is it possible that with new management and changing business conditions (e.g., dominance of Google and Apple in mobile), that their true conspiracy might actually work out for the "net" good?

      If not, we need to seriously consider what folks like Redhat are really up to with their so-called support "open source"...

    5. Re:mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course the objective is to make money. That's RedHat's objective too. Let's just see this as a small win for Open Source. The giants are finally starting to see Open Source as an ally rather than an enemy. That benefits everybody. Feel free to not use Microsoft (I sure don't), but bask in the thought that maybe, someday when you're forced to reverse engineer a .NET project, things will have gotten a little easier.

    6. Re:mod parent up by Quarters · · Score: 1

      But but but, it doesn't matter if Microsoft NEVER went through with the vague and veiled threat StormReaver came up with, IT'S STILL A FRIGGIN TRAP!!! And if you didn't see it the fault is on you and a pox on your family for all eternity....or something, I guess...

    7. Re:mod parent up by sombragris · · Score: 5, Informative

      I will give MS the benefit of the doubt in this one. Good for them, and for the cause of Free Software.

      However, about your rhetorical question:

      Okay, I'll bite: how many entities has MS sued for .net patent violations on the subsequent versions, as you referenced? It's been the better part of a decade now, right? No doubt they have sprung their trap...?

      I'll answer: I don't know, but MS doesn't need to sue when half of all Android devices worldwide paid extortion money to MS to the tune of USD 28 billion in confidential settlements, and it refuses to disclose which exact patents it is using for (extortion) licensing.

      IMHO, the trap has sprung, and has bitten a lot of people. So yes, some distrust in MS is well warranted.

      --
      -- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
    8. Re:mod parent up by west · · Score: 1

      how many entities has MS sued for .net patent violations on the subsequent versions, as you referenced? It's been the better part of a decade now, right? No doubt they have sprung their trap...?

      Ah, they're just deepening the trap, waiting for the day when they can take over the world. They may look like just another company trying to make money with their product, but just you watch.

      Next you'll believe that the Soviet Union was dissolved and communism dead! Ha, yet another sucker, falling for the Red Army's trap!

    9. Re:mod parent up by spitzak · · Score: 1

      Every single manufacturer of Android phones has been threatened enough to pay up.

    10. Re: mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, when Skynet becomes self aware, look for the MS logo, or something like that.

    11. Re:mod parent up by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Every single manufacturer of Android phones has been threatened enough to pay up.

      What's that got to do with the community promise for the .Net runtime?

    12. Re:mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, he's not. He is completely ignorant of history. Even if you can't see it right now, there is trap hidden somewhere in Microsoft's actions.

      You're right, but I *can* see it: Microsoft keeps you all distracted with its actions open sourcing things under free software licenses and you are busy trying to find out how it can possibly be nefarious. All the while they have been collecting Android patent royalties, now they don't want that gravy train to stop and Google doesn't want to be cut out of advertising revenue so Microsoft provided them a strategy to eliminate the openness of Android and thus keep a stranglehold on the dominant mobile operating system, a strategy they tried and failed themselves. Google has developed a proprietary layer for Android which applications are starting to depend upon thus embracing open, mobile Linux, extending it with Android and extinguishing the openness with Google Play Services, all the while Microsoft has used misdirection to keep you suitably confused about what was really going on.

      Microsoft and Google are really working together for mutual benefit and, as you admitted already, you cannot see it! The trap is being sprung and you have no idea!

    13. Re:mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's quite clear what they're suing and settling on, you can read about a dozen cases related to specific vendors online. They're suing for unpaid royalties related to FAT32 and other proprietary patents... and rightfully so. You can't just steal from someone, use the stolen IP to make a boatload, and walk away with your spoils. These companies knew damn well using FAT32 without a licences was illegal.

      Google got smart and decided to buy Motorola. They couldn't have given a fuck less about owing a hardware manufacturing company; they cared about obtaining IP they could hold over MS (or whoever) when they come with their hands extended. If you're going to pay billions, you might as well get something out of it. Now google owns patents that everyone else is using without paying and they'll get their payday in court too.

    14. Re:mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The trap is being sprung and you have no idea!

      A conspiracy so deep and intricate that the victims can't even tell once the trap has been sprung!

      Excuse me, I hear that the Emperor is about to pass by and he'll be wearing his finest new clothing...

    15. Re:mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This release also includes a patent grant (and a much more friendly one than the recent Facebook patent grant at that). Seriously, 10 years ago I would never have thought it possible, but Microsoft appears to actually understand the benefits of free software and have made what appears to be an entirely appropriate move in that direction. It is slightly unfortunate that they have taken this long to work it out and I wonder if they will get the adoption that they are looking for, but still they deserve to be commended.

    16. Re:mod parent up by Raenex · · Score: 1

      The trap isn't suing over patents. The trap is getting you to depend on a stack that Microsoft controls. It's something they've always done, in one form or another. Embrace, extend, extinguish. In this case, they're asking others to embrace .NET.

    17. Re:mod parent up by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      FYI, the MS-* are no longer permitted for new open source projects originated in MS. These days, it has to be Apache or MIT or something along these lines.

      If you look at F/OSS products shipped by MS in the past three years or so, you'll see that none of them shipped under MS-*, and a bunch have actually switched from that (usually to Apache).

  12. Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by Viol8 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Seriously, that guy has been shouting at the pigeons for years. And I speak as an open source user and advocate.

    1. Re:Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 0

      I thoroughly dislike RMS but I think that RMS' crusade for Free as in Freedom software is important. It's absolutely zany from a practical stand point. For example, the four software freedoms just aren't aren't practical. Yet, it's done so much for us. Apache, the GNU toolchain, Linux, etc etc etc.

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    2. Re:Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Freedom 2 & 3 are what would make software impossible to make revenue on. Free distribution rights would inevitably dilute the possibility of recovering any expenses.

    3. Re:Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by allquixotic · · Score: 1

      While it is true that free distribution makes it difficult to impossible to make money on software *distribution*, this does NOT mean that it is now impossible to make a profit while producing software!

      One way is to profit from other aspects of the technology ecosystem. This includes selling support (or "patches/enhancements delivered for a price") for software, which is plenty profitable if you ask Red Hat. Another approach is to sell things that are inherently not copyable at zero cost, like hardware. I don't mean literally selling hardware like Intel; I mean hosting a cloud platform or something like that where you install your software and sell it as a service. Microsoft Azure. Amazon EC2. Google Cloud Engine. Another approach is to sell content, a la Spotify or Amazon Video on Demand or iTunes.

      Companies can amortize software development as a cost of doing business. If every company does this, not only will it greatly increase net utility (all the individuals who "just want to use it one time" but can't afford the $1,999 sticker shock for enterprise software, for instance), but it will also reduce the amount of investment needed from each individual company, because each company will be contributing. Although from an individualistic perspective each company has an incentive not to contribute, if *no one* contributes, there will be no software commons, and thus each company will have to reinvent the wheel themselves (or pay another vendor an arm and a leg for exorbitant license fees to do so for them).

      It's entirely possible for a large company like Google, Amazon, Red Hat, Microsoft, Adobe, etc. to open source their software while still turning a net corporate profit by selling other things that are not inherently copyable -- things which integrate closely with and use their software. At the same time, by making it open source, they can benefit from the long tail of drive-by patches that reduces the overall cost of their software investment.

      It's simple. Aim for net utility as a principle of doing business. Reduce your assets to their essence and sell them based on their essential properties. Software is essentially copyable, so let it be copyable. Ever hear the term "software wants to be free"? So let it be free. Focus your profiteering on something that can't easily be copied for the cost of a few megabytes of data, and help build a better world by contributing to the software commons (and eating your own dogfood if you're able).

    4. Re:Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by CAPSLOCK2000 · · Score: 1

      What people fail to grasp is that shrinkwrap software is only a small part of the entire software market. Most software is never sold. It's written to solve a specific problem within an organisation. Most companies are not software companies. They will write software when they have to, but they would prefer to focus on their primary activity. Cooperating with other companies is a way to save money. Someone might think that those companies wouldn't want to share the software because they would lose a competetive advantage but that's usually not the case. Those companies don't want to compete on software, it's not their strong suit.

    5. Re:Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      You're talking about software consumers, like say, a CAD design company which uses CAD tools to make things. I'm talking about companies that make software for such customers to use, like a Cadence or an Autocad. These companies would consume millions of people-hours in creating the software that their customers need, and the reason they have high costs such as per CPU licenses is that they have a limited list of customers to begin w/.

      In this model, let's say Acme Software creates a program and sells it to its customer Foo Designs. Foo needs the source code in order to help debug things when things don't work, and Acme has no issues doing that. However, Acme's customer base is limited, and the last thing it can do is allow any customer to share their software w/ their other potential customers. So they do a shared source license w/ Foo - Foo pays $X for N #workstations, and has some leeway in installing it on more, but Foo cannot share its software w/ Bar Designs. So if Bar wants the same thing, Acme is their only source. Now one could argue that if Bar doesn't get it from Foo for free, they wouldn't bother buying it from Acme. Well, Acme owns the product (I know, I know, RMS doesn't want software to have owners), and it's up to them on whether or not they are better off as a result of a non-paying non-customer getting it.

      Now, one could argue that Acme should change its business model to a subscription one, where they hire engineers to help customers debug designs. Well, sorry, but it's up to a company to decide what business model it wants to be in. While some may indeed prefer to sell services on a subscription basis, others may choose to sell software and not deal w/ the headaches of having more employees deal w/ customer issues. At any rate, the GNU freedoms, if they didn't include 2 and the part of 3 that allows free redistribution, would have been ideal. Copyleft is about forcing freedom 2 to be enforced.

    6. Re:Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by amaurea · · Score: 1

      Copyright isn't the only way to get paid for writing software. A kickstarter approach lets you collect the money upfront rather than trying to track down people and make them pay post-hoc. Make a page detailing all the neat stuff the software (or the new version) will do, name your price, and see if the world wants it. It's turned out to work very well for computer games, for example.

    7. Re:Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One way is to profit from other aspects of the technology ecosystem. This includes selling support (or "patches/enhancements delivered for a price") for software, which is plenty profitable if you ask Red Hat.

      RedHat sell enterprise support, nobody but enterprises is buying support so the only thing that is funded is enterprise software.

      Another approach is to sell things that are inherently not copyable at zero cost, like hardware. I don't mean literally selling hardware like Intel; I mean hosting a cloud platform or something like that where you install your software and sell it as a service. Microsoft Azure. Amazon EC2. Google Cloud Engine.

      That fundamentally goes against having control of your system and doing computing on your own computer.

      Another approach is to sell content, a la Spotify or Amazon Video on Demand or iTunes.

      They're content sellers, not software developers, the software they do have is purely a means to sell content.

      Companies can amortize software development as a cost of doing business.

      But individuals cannot and most companies do not want to become software developers which is why they just license software from people who know what they are doing.

      If every company does this, not only will it greatly increase net utility (all the individuals who "just want to use it one time" but can't afford the $1,999 sticker shock for enterprise software, for instance), but it will also reduce the amount of investment needed from each individual company, because each company will be contributing.

      Companies arent going to want to contribute to their competitors, much less getting every company to act in the interest of everybody else for no tangible benefit over the current system.

      It's entirely possible for a large company like Google, Amazon, Red Hat, Microsoft, Adobe, etc. to open source their software while still turning a net corporate profit by selling other things that are not inherently copyable -- things which integrate closely with and use their software.

      Nope, we see this exact same failure with Android where it has just been a race to the bottom. Unless you have exclusivity of tying your software to your hardware like Apple does there is no incentive to buy them. What exactly is Adobe going to sell better than anybody else that pays for all the costs of developing their products?

      Software is essentially copyable, so let it be copyable. Ever hear the term "software wants to be free"? So let it be free.

      Yeah all your bank account details and private information is essentially copyable and "wants to be free" too. So lead by example and let it be free.

      Focus your profiteering on something that can't easily be copied for the cost of a few megabytes of data, and help build a better world by contributing to the software commons (and eating your own dogfood if you're able).

      Fact is the existence of proprietary software doesn't inhibit your ability to try and make this work, the reality is that the system you propose does not work, that is why nobody is doing it and that is why it hasn't ever been successful. It requires everybody to work together and harmoniously cooperate, if you think that can be achieved then I'd say world peace is a much bigger result than the dubious benefit of free software.

      There was never anything to stop FOSS from innovating, from producing the now dominant smartphone, tablet or wearable computing products yet they didn't. Because that model does not work, it has been proven in the consumer space as a failure. Linux accounts for a measly share of desktops, the only significant entry to the smartphone, tablet and wearable markets has been me-too "Android" which is FOSS wrapped in a big proprietary blob.

      The FOSS community is still proud to announce an

    8. Re:Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Someone might think that those companies wouldn't want to share the software because they would lose a competetive advantage but that's usually not the case.

      Of course it is! If a company has developed software that has allowed them to improve their processes and increase their profits you are clearly deluded if you actually believe a company would just willingly give that to their competitors.

    9. Re:Does anyone care what RMS thinks any more? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      There's nothing stopping you from doing that and if it's viable then people will do it, if it isn't viable then they won't. Stop worrying about it and let the market decide.

  13. I *am* raising more than one eyebrow ... by Qbertino · · Score: 0

    This *is* a suprise. I knew MS would learn the lesson eventually. Probably to late, but eventually. That they are this serious about it actually honestly suprises me.
    It still is to late, IMHO. FOSS toolchains, especially those web-centric ones, are deeply entrenched with developers already. And those teams deliver software and solutions orders of magnitude cheaper than anything MS has to offer - even if they runtime tech is now all FOSS.

    But, who knows? MS might just become the FOSS services company Linuxcare alway wanted to be. They've should've started 10 years ago. If they make a few more smart moves they'll be in the limelight again.

    My 2 cents.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re:I *am* raising more than one eyebrow ... by Shados · · Score: 1

      Orders of magnitude cheaper if you don't count the devs maybe... $0 in tools and software license, vs a few thousand for something fairly large, when your engineers + AWS (or data center, or whatever) cost you tens of millions, makes a minimal difference.

      That said, it really isn't surprising. Its just incremental. Their devtool division has been slowing going toward this for years now.

  14. Huh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd never thought I'd see the day Microsoft would make all that great stuff available for everyone. Where's the catch? I really need to know there's one to sate my suspicions. Otherwise my paranoia will take over and I'll end up in an asylum.

    1. Re:Huh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, this is almost guaranteed to increase the both the demand and the development base for .net products and because nothing on the market compares to visual studio when it comes to development (particularly in .net languages) it's likely to also increase adoption of windows and VS even among developers who aren't targeting MS platforms. Likewise with Azure.

      It's not a bad thing by itself, it's just bad if you really dislike Microsoft as a principle.

  15. Handles garbage collection? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not really effective, then.

  16. So by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is this good for? If I won't be able to run existing .net applications in non-windows oses, or be able to develop new .net applications from non-windows oses, what do I care?

  17. Just think... by Dan+East · · Score: 2

    Just think if MS would have done this over a decade ago when they released C# / .NET. It could have nearly replaced Java. I could see 3rd party "standards" created for widgets that would be cross-platform (like Swing, etc, for Java), that people could use to create their cross-platform windowed GUI type apps. The formal Windows APIs would be used for people wanting to create full blown Windows-only apps. However all the core functionality (non-gui stuff) would be cross-platform and if written properly could have driven both the "Swing"-ish community created GUI, as well as the official Windows GUI stuff.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Just think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They may have a better chance of making now, with Oracle pissing everybody off with their stewardship of Java. Sun Micro was considered the good guys, at least as far as Java was concerned.

      But MS hasn't open sourced a complete, usable platform. They've open sourced key components of a platform.

    2. Re:Just think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Decades ago they did, but they didn't rename it yet. It was called Microsoft Java, and SUN had to sue them to stop because they didn't make it 100% compatible with SUN's Java. This led to a fracture in the Java echosphere, with people trying to figure out if that "Java Program" needed a MSJava VM or a SUN Java VM.

      Now that a lot of time has passed, Microsoft's offerings have drifted away and become a truly different language. The CLR engine shares the basic design similarities, but the libraries differ significantly. The transition to and from native code differs slightly. The handling of tail-end recursion may still differ (haven't followed up, Java changed a bit with 1.8). The languages supported really do differ, etc.

      If Microsoft was allowed to do what you hint at, it wouldn't have been good for many; because, back then it was a very light (just enough to be legal) implementation of the core Java concepts

    3. Re:Just think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      And this should color your understanding of WHY they are finally doing it.
      Because, you know, there are thousands of .NET v1 applications out there that are no longer supported by MS, in any shape or manner.
      So they're just throwing the code out there to satisfy some non-upgrading hanger-ons, in the hope that those clients won't ditch MS entirely when they have to rewrite their custom applications.
      It's a weak gesture, and far too late to be of any practical use.
      Nice hand-waving though - gets the whole IT community excited to argue its merits.
      Even bad press is better than none, sometimes.

    4. Re:Just think... by Shados · · Score: 1

      The thing is, let say they do that. Then what. Developing something like that is hard, takes really smart (read: command a high salary) people, tons of project management resources, etc. Thats a lot of dough.

      You get some good will and dominate the market, but that won't repay anything. Almost anyone still using Windows who doesn't do it for legacy reasons (that is, people who have been using Windows and can't go through the trouble of switching) on the server, does so because of .NET.

      So you'd have .NET all over the place, and Microsoft with a lot less money in their pockets.

      Now, if Microsoft had a cross platform strategy FIRST, then it would make sense. Now though, they're basically doing this just to win back developer good will.. and their competitor are already trying to extend -> extinguish them the moment they started (ie: TypeScript -> Google AtScript)

    5. Re:Just think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're describing J++. (Which is legally not Java.)

      J# was later, after they ported J++ and all the VBRUNxx.DLL stuff into a single runtime environment, worked out the kinks, and added a C-alike language (C#).

    6. Re:Just think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      .Net 1.0 was replaced quickly with .Net 1.1. I've never seen a 1.0-only program in the wild. And they bent over backwards to keep 2.0 compatible with 1.1. Only with 4.0 did there begin to be some major compatibility faults between 1.1 and newer versions, and even then, they're pretty well known.

      .Net 1.1 was released in 2003. 4.0 was released in 2010. You had 7 years and 2 releases of Windows to update your code at that point, so no crying when your lazy ass gets left behind. A quick recompile should point out any incompatible bits, and a further day or two of development time should solve anything that you find. And then it runs on a better-optimized version of the CLR, and you get a free performance boost. Not to mention that you're not required to run on shitty-old WinXP and 32-bit hardware anymore.

      On a side note, has anyone noticed that all whitespace preceding a period is replaced with a single space when previewing a /. post? Starting a paragraph with ".Net" causes the line-breaks to disappear. To force them back, I had to add an empty blockquote between paragraphs above.

    7. Re:Just think... by wbo · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that you're not required to run on shitty-old WinXP and 32-bit hardware anymore.

      Actually the .NET 2.0 runtime is still available even in Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 it is just not installed by default. So even if you have a .NET 1.1 application you can still run it without recompiling/porting to .NET 4.0.

      Although I have to say I have written quite a few .NET applications for various purposes and ever single one of my .NET 1.1 and 2.0 applications compiled under .NET 4 with no changes and run perfectly.

    8. Re: Just think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      real men use a swiss language, pascal. download lazarus today if you are not a metrosexual.
      beware of the agitprop forces of the ram makers, they sing the siren song of java. also beware of nsa, they want c based exploits to peruse. thats why their friends at bell labs infected the world with c in the first place.

    9. Re:Just think... by AqD · · Score: 1

      They may have a better chance of making now, with Oracle pissing everybody off with their stewardship of Java. Sun Micro was considered the good guys, at least as far as Java was concerned.

      You're kidding right? Sun was the asshole who delayed Java development for many years, refused to fix fundamental problems and invited other vendors to cause fragmentation.

      • The leading application servers were NOT made by Sun
      • The leading IDEs were NOT made by Sun
      • The leading web frameworks were NOT made by Sun
      • The leading application frameworks were NOT made by Sun
      • The leading persistence frameworks were NOT made by Sun
      • The de-facto GUI framework Sun made was a joke compared to Qt. It never goes beyond a textbook example because Sun refused to extend and improve it!
      • Sun could have made something like Android 10 years ago. They never did.
      • JNA (Java Native Access) does the thing which Sun should have done 20 years ago with their retarded JNI
      • Java still lacks simple process control and interaction with OS in general to this day.
      • In fact, I couldn't think of anything Sun has done right, whether to itself or anyone involved.

      Sun was the stewardship of Java in their last years. Oracle is at least doing things now.

    10. Re:Just think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, Microsoft wasted a decade with Ballmer in charge.

    11. Re:Just think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently you didn't build software for .Net 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, or 3.0. 3.5 was when it finally started to shine. You could do a lot in prior framework iterations but anytime I have to work in legacy products, it's amazing the amount of pop ups that say "This feature is in .Net XX".

      2.0-3.0 were pretty good. 3.5 is much better, 4.0 & 4.5 really rock the casbah.

  18. Re:.NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    > cannot be forked and is patent encumbered
    It is under a MIT license and have an additional patent promise. So fork away. And please RTFA before posting FUD.

  19. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny how all the Microsoft boosters are too afraid to post with their actual account names attached.

    Probably afraid that their posting histories would reveal them to be the paid shills they really are. "Billly Gates" and "phantomfive" for example.

  20. It rescued me! by rippeltippel · · Score: 1

    Finally! strI wWas rReally uMissing szSome Hungarian pNotation!

  21. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by WalrusSlayer · · Score: 2

    Nice ad hominem. Not posting this anonymously, nor am I a Microsoft booster. Now will you go check your facts? It is indeed MIT licensed (as been cited a dozen times above), and does have a patent promise attached. What more do you want? Yes, there could be some clever devilry hidden about somewhere, but on its face it seems pretty legit and straightforward.

  22. Outlook web access by mythix · · Score: 1

    Maybe they can start by unblocking chrome linux in OWA, "we love linux" my ass.

  23. Re:I heard he died. by DoctorBonzo · · Score: 1

    sounds like there's a good joke in there somewhere, but I'm missing it.

    can anyone set it up properly?

  24. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by jones_supa · · Score: 1

    Funny how all the Microsoft boosters are too afraid to post with their actual account names attached.

    Probably afraid that their posting histories would reveal them to be the paid shills they really are. "Billly Gates" and "phantomfive" for example.

    Or maybe they are afraid that by just talking about Microsoft products in a positive manner, they would automatically be tagged as shills by shitheads like you.

  25. Re:Great Start.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Like they did back in November, you mean?

    http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/news/vs2013-community-vs.aspx

  26. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How's that Fortran thing working out for you? I hear it's the latest rage.

  27. Re:Great Start.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now make the whole Visual Studio suite available for free to home users.

    You might want to check out Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition... It's the same thing as VS2013 Professional; it's free until your "hobby" has 5 employees or $1 million in revenue

  28. A grain of truth by Bent+Spoke · · Score: 1, Troll

    Despite the anit-MS sentiment, there is a grain of truth to the "ALWAYS a hidden trap" sentiment.

    Who here doesn't believe that MS has a huge marketing department that essentially holds sway over almost all major announcements and strategies. The untrue part is that there is some sort of evil at work. There's not. It's not personal at all.

    However, to the marketing department, all software outside their control is viewed as a potential competitor. And Linux/GNU more than most.

    So we can be reasonably certain that any MS direction is not designed to help Linux be more attractive to users.
     

    1. Re:A grain of truth by Marginal+Coward · · Score: 1

      I agree that MS has no real interest in making Linux more attractive to users. But maybe they could end up doing that in some small way as a side-effect of what they're really trying to accomplish. In this case, perhaps they are widening the .net ecosystem (for their own selfish purposes) but that may benefit Mac and Linux users in some way.

      If they're wildly successful, though, maybe Linux in the form of Android would suffer. But I don't think see how more openness in .net and more competition in the mobile space can be viewed as a bad thing - except in the narrow sense that it may further Microsoft's business interests. To me, the real conspiricay here is that Microsoft want to be "doing well by doing good."

    2. Re:A grain of truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This has nothing to do with making Linux more attractive. This initiative is being driven by the *fact* of Linux dominance in the server market. Microsoft wants its server technologies to be adopted, and they now see that running ASP .Net on Apache is an absolute requirement for relevance. See more info on "Project K", which is the next generation of ASP .Net, which will run natively on Linux.

      http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-teched-adams-fort-knox-project-k-and-more-codenames-to-know/

  29. Re: I heard he died. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ

  30. Re:Great Start.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm glad that you are following what is happening in Microsoft-land. ;)

  31. Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's all about C# developers. Longtime C# users can now write software for almost any platform, especially when Xamarin is in the mix.

  32. Re:Great Start.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cloud based. No thanks.

  33. Re:Great Start.... by Lumpy · · Score: 0

    Holy crap....

    Hell has officially frozen over. That would have never happened under the iron Fist of Ballmer.

    This just might make the RasPi Windows 10 release relevant.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  34. disposable vs non-disposable by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

    This is why I don't like developing for Microsoft's stack. They seem to want to throw everything out every few years and start over.

    Not that different from the Java FOSS cornucopia. And in many ways, it is better than the design-by-committee-slow-as-molasses thing we have with JEE and the JCP.

    Then again, it seems like the web business is like that, too.

    A lot of it is ego and developers OCD/fixation with trying new technical things (as opposed to solving business problems with economical, yet maintainable solutions.)

    OTH, a lot of the churn is due to external pressures of competition. You put something on the web, someone is already competing with you.

    Then you have catch up at worst, or out-innovate them at best, which leads to technical changes and challenges that inevitable lead to revisiting and reinventing (sometimes brilliantly, many times horrendously) the plumbing, the scaffolding and struts that puts all of it together, where it gets deployed, etc.

    Damn. Doesn't anyone write non-disposable code any more?

    Non-disposable technical software is not a quality you want to seek unless you are developing critical systems.

    If your web stuff is not disposable, it means it cannot be replaced when the need arises (which it will.)

    Disposable code is trivial if we know what the fuck we are doing. What we do not want are Enterprise-level business logic and dependencies and fundamental architectural decisions that are trivially disposable.

    You want those things to be clear and malleable, but not so easily disposable. Because then you have a clear blue print with which to create systems with disposable (ergo, loosely coupled) design/implementation-level artifacts.

  35. Re:Great Start.... by qzzpjs · · Score: 2

    Now make the whole Visual Studio suite available for free to home users.

    They did... The 2013 Community Edition was released a couple months ago and includes all the languages and even supports the Visual Studio plugins. It's not Ultimate, but can do pretty much everything a home user would need. The older express versions have been free for years too but didn't support plugins.

  36. In other news... by VGPowerlord · · Score: 1

    In other news, Oracle has announced that they're working on a new version of Java.

    Dubbed vNExT, it's supposed to provide a much faster VM than the classic JVM,

    Unfortunately, to take advantage of it, you have to recompile your Java code with the new "Joslyn" compiler, which isn't quite done yet.

    --
    GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    1. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having to Google a joke makes it less funny.

    2. Re: In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      also, you have to donate one of you eggs to oracles legal dept. one of your two.

  37. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by qzzpjs · · Score: 1

    Okay, it's MIT licensed, and there's a patent promise - which i personally don't trust, but you're welcome to.

    I don't understand this fear that people have over this patent promise. Are there that many people out there who intend to write their own version of the .NET core components? The only group that may be affected by Microsoft changing their mind is the Mono project team. It wouldn't affect anyone who just wrote their own applications using the .NET framework.

    This is basically like Oracle suing Google because they created their own Java runtime engine for their Android phones, Dalvik. Microsoft has promised to not to be as stupid as Oracle.

  38. MIT license is GPL-compatible by tepples · · Score: 1

    Because [the MIT license is] not "Stallman Approved."

    The license of X11 is "Stallman approved" in the sense that it's a GPL-compatible free software license. But FSF's favorite non-copyleft license is the Apache license version 2.0, which has stronger patent guarantees in jurisdictions with software patents.

    1. Re:MIT license is GPL-compatible by unixisc · · Score: 1

      If one is gonna go non-copyleft, why would one bother about what the FSF thinks? Also, when you say GPL-compatible license, are you talking GPL2 or GPL3? Since these 2 are incompatible w/ each other.

    2. Re:MIT license is GPL-compatible by tepples · · Score: 1

      If one is gonna go non-copyleft, why would one bother about what the FSF thinks?

      Because someone might want to know what FSF's legal counsel thinks about the sort of protections a particular free software license offers to users of software distributed under that license and its compatibility with other widely used free software licenses.

      Also, when you say GPL-compatible license, are you talking GPL2 or GPL3?

      Both GPLv2 and GPLv3 are compatible with the X11 license. Only GPLv3 is compatible with the Apache license, version 2.0.

  39. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by Torp · · Score: 1

    It's the cost of doing business in the US - you have to expect being sued.

    --
    I apologize for the lack of a signature.
  40. Including ".NET Native"? by Wootery · · Score: 1
  41. The CLR is actually good technology... by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 2

    It's relatively nice as far as VMs go, better designed than the JVM. This was a piece of good engineering work from Microsoft and I'm glad they're opening it. Welcome to the new world, MS guys. You don't seem to be acting quite so black and white anymore. Good on you.

    And to the naysayers... well, it's a start. Be kind.

    --
    That is all.
  42. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And yet here you are posting in a thread about Microsoft. Top notch.

  43. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by Torp · · Score: 1

    I don't know shit about Fortran. I do Android, iOS and (embedded) Linux.

    --
    I apologize for the lack of a signature.
  44. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it is still much better for my nuke simulations than your hipster stuff. because it can actually be optimized seriously. here is a pfennig, boy. call dr kuck and talk to a real man.
    he automatically parallelized code while you still shat into your pampers.

  45. Overton Window by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    RMS occupies a point of morality that makes far fewer compromises than most people are willing to do. He has a great deal of moral authority, and he's been pretty oracular in the past. No one else is willing to make the same choices, but it's not necessarily important.

    What is important is that he keeps on moralizing. Because it makes positions nearer to that (with acceptable compromises) seem more normal. So far it's working great. The crazier he gets, the more sane the rest of us sound. Well, not that I think he's changed his message much in the last 30 years, but you take my point.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:Overton Window by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      He also lives on charity at this point AFAIK, which does something to damage his credibility. Not all of us have the luxury of living rent free on Berkeley; we must actually work to make a living.

  46. Ability to script the OS is cool, having to is not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, it's just the idiot sysadmins who think their entire job function is to write shell scripts that don't like systemd. "But shell scripts are UNIX!" So is C, dumbass. In point of fact, it's most Unixy to write it in bash first, and then write a non-hacky version of it in C.

    Don't like it? Go use OpenRC. Oh wait they're doing the exact same thing. The difference is that while they're abstracting out common functionality into C libraries, adding dependency information to the scripts, adding support for cgroups, and leaving behind a very small shell script that barely does anything, systemd is doing the exact same thing and leaving behind a very small unit file with a declarative syntax.

    Those of you who think that the job of the OS is to be a minimal platform for executing user-defined scripts, can keep using Slackware, and reconcile your differences with OpenRC. Those of us who think that pidfiles are a brain-dead awful way to track services, and the people who don't give a shit about scripting can use something that actually works like it's supposed to.

  47. Re: .NET is NOT “Open Source” .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you even know what ad hominem means? Did he say that his argument is invalid because of lippydude's skin color, gender or anything personal? There was no personal attack in that comment. (unless this site is stupid enough to let anonymous people edit their comments).

  48. RMS & 'morality' by unixisc · · Score: 1

    I'll probably be modded down for this, but I hardly consider RMS and morality in the same breath. I saw a video of his posted a few days ago by a /. poster, where he said that if you steal food when you are hungry and don't have money to eat, that's more justified than writing proprietary software. We've discussed this in past RMS related threads - where he endorses breaking the law if one doesn't like it, endorses 'consensual' pedophilia, thinks that necrophilia should be legal, and all the while, believing that proprietary software should be illegal and that software should not have owners

    1. Re:RMS & 'morality' by amaurea · · Score: 1

      RMS usually presents candid arguments for his positions, and I agree with most of them. I get from the overall tone of your post that we're supposed to disagree with his statements, but you forgot to include the actual argument.

  49. Oops, replied to wrong post. by amaurea · · Score: 1

    That was meant for unixisc.

  50. Not your morals != amoral by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    Just because it's a morality that you disagree with does not mean he is amoral. He is an extremist — that's why he's useful. He makes any other Open Source advocate seem like a moderate, when in fact the software industry has changed radically in the last 15-20 years.

    RMS may be a crackpot, but he's a very influential crackpot. The largest software vendor in the world just open-sourced their core programming platform. Do you remember how loony Open Source used to be? No one is laughing at the "freetards" any more. RMS may still be risible, but he may yet have the last laugh.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:Not your morals != amoral by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Psst... RMS will gag if he hears you refer to his work as 'Open Source'. It's 'libre': the ideology that you should not have access to anything but 'libre software'. Open Source is the brainchild of Eric Raymond, Torvalds and a number of others, and includes in its ranks the BSD genre of licenses, such as BSDL, X11, MIT, Apache, et al. It's under that banner that Microsoft opened up anything.

    2. Re:Not your morals != amoral by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 2

      I am aware of the Open Source / Free Software split. I also know that MIT/X11 is not a copyleft license. Let's not confuse this issue with facts. I don't really care what license they're releasing it under. That Microsoft can do this, not to a chorus of enraged howls, but to people pooh-poohing it as "too little too late," means that software freedom has won. I'm just saying though, it's probably a little premature to take RMS behind the shed. Winning is one thing, but there's no kill like overkill. Personally, I wouldn't cry if proprietary software stopped being a thing; I get paid either way.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  51. Cancer? by ilsaloving · · Score: 2

    Does this mean Microsoft has developed cancer?

    Seriously, while recent moves in this regard have been good, only a fool would ignore history. Microsoft, for as long as it has existed, has done countless morally dubious things in order to maintain control. The history is all right there for the googling. Just because they do a couple Good(tm) things doesn't magically mean they have suddenly realized the errors of their ways and are doing a 180. You can't erase ~40 years of assholry.

    Based on the moves Microsoft has done lately, I will move my needle from "completely distrust" to "MAYBE it's not a trap" but still nowhere near the realm of "trustworthy"

  52. Moonlight re-visited ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder if this could be a help to the age old and now dormant moonlight project ? Is any of .NET 's code in silverlight ?