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Google Joins Microsoft's .NET Foundation (venturebeat.com)

Emil Protalinski, writing for VentureBeat:As part of its slew of announcements at its Connect(); 2016 developer event in New York City today, Microsoft unveiled that Google is joining the .NET Foundation. Specifically, Google is becoming a member of the Technical Steering Group, which Microsoft says "reinforces the vibrancy of the .NET developer community" and also underlines "Google's commitment to fostering an open platform that supports businesses and developers who have standardized on .NET." [...] So what does Google joining actually mean? In short, Google will help steer the future of .NET in a way that is "similar to an open standard," Xamarin cofounder and Microsoft's current vice president of mobile developer tools, Nat Friedman, told VentureBeat. Google's decision is being driven by its enterprise business (Google Cloud) and the desire to keep up with businesses adopting public and hybrid clouds. The company sees the move as part of its commitment to open-source technology, which benefits all enterprises, and cross-platform development that gives developers and IT professionals access to the best tools.

40 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Lots of love today... by rwven · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft joins the Linux foundation, Google joins the .NET foundation. What's next? Hillary joins the Trump Foundation?

    1. Re:Lots of love today... by duckintheface · · Score: 1

      Yep. The lion lies down with the lamb. Bozo the Clown is elected President. Signs of the apocalypse.

      --
      "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
    2. Re:Lots of love today... by tepples · · Score: 1

      Neither candidate for POTUS in 2016 won a majority of the popular vote.

    3. Re:Lots of love today... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      That would be Hillarious!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    4. Re:Lots of love today... by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      Why not, she went to his wedding.

    5. Re:Lots of love today... by Feral+Nerd · · Score: 1

      Neither candidate for POTUS in 2016 won a majority of the popular vote.

      Ok, ok, if you want to pick knits, he didn't win the largest block of popular votes.

    6. Re:Lots of love today... by Marsoupial · · Score: 3

      "Those people who have a different viewpoint than me are mentally retarded, and their leader is physically unattractive to boot, which further lends credence to my viewpoint."

    7. Re:Lots of love today... by xvan · · Score: 1

      Imagine that you're playing basketball for the presidency, and Trump wins by 2 points, but he has more triples during the match.

      After the match you say, Hilary scored more shots than Trump.

      Everybody sane argues that they were playing basketball to decide, and that the winner is decided by points not shots scored. In an alternate reality where the game is decided by shots, Both teams would have played different and you don't know who would have won.

      You called that people Fuckface, and shout that the game is rigged.

    8. Re:Lots of love today... by megamind · · Score: 1

      I feel like I am living in an alternate reality.

    9. Re:Lots of love today... by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      FWIW, ignorance is not something to be worn on your sleeve with pride (unless you're just trolling, in which case you've done a great job).

      In the event you're not just trolling masterfully, and require education, there IS no "national popular vote" for the US presidency, because there is not one election, but rather fifty-one elections. One of the (admittedly quirky) checks and balances in our system which is designed to help keep large states from running roughshod over small states. Strictly speaking, there doesn't need to be a popular election at all. Each state can appoint its electors in the manner it sees fit. All of them, today, choose to do so by popular vote, but there's nothing that keeps, say, Oregon from deciding tomorrow that from now on, they're going to have the legislature do it, or draw lots, or read goat entrails, or whatever.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    10. Re:Lots of love today... by haruchai · · Score: 1

      "Those people who have a different viewpoint than me are mentally retarded, and their leader is physically unattractive to boot, which further lends credence to my viewpoint."

      And here's the proof - Trump led the birther campaign, claimed his crack(-smoking?) investigative team were discovering so many wonderful, beautiful things in Hawaii......and revealed what?? And then, on the cusp of winning the election summarily declares that Obama was born in America.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    11. Re:Lots of love today... by RandomFactor · · Score: 1

      If you want to make that statement you need to have the early/mail-in ballots counted. Even if they won't swing the election.

      In this case, a slight weighting on those (which I understand is typical) and you could turn out to be incorrect.

      I vaguely recall something about news organizations doing their own recounts back in the 2000 election. Wonder if there are any constraints to a group pulling the mail-in ballots and counting them?

      --
      --- Mercutio was right.
  2. My prediction for the next story on Slashdot: by lxs · · Score: 4, Funny

    Apple joins the Open Source Hardware Association.

    1. Re:My prediction for the next story on Slashdot: by Yvan256 · · Score: 1

      Followed by: The Open Source Hardware Association now mandates industrial glue and non-upgradable parts as standard design requirements.

  3. What will happen? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Microsoft can push their own thing for decades at a time until they get enough support to become somewhat a standard.
    Google usually create their own things and then discontinue them after only a few months.

    Will the two combine? Does that mean .NET will be dead within a year?

  4. Re:Black holes of pure evil merge by Yvan256 · · Score: 3, Funny

    If they do, then our only hope is that Adobe also joins them and brings them down with code bloat and security holes.

  5. Re:EEE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    By who, Google or Microsoft?

    I suspect that Google is interested in finding a fallback to let them replace Java in Android. I forget what Oracle's current legal tactic is but they're still doing something to try and sue Google for using Java in Android with paying them massive amounts of money. What Oracle doesn't seem to realize is that Android is one of the last Java strongholds. Thanks to Oracle's mishandling of the platform, a lot of Java shops started looking elsewhere. (Or maybe Oracle does realize, and this is their last ditch attempt to make money off the Java purchase.)

    If Google makes Android .Net-based going forward, it could finally kill Java entirely. I'm not saying Google is going to do that, but I would bet that they're going to make it an option, allowing Android apps to be written in either Java or .Net "natively." (Because you can currently use .Net to write Android apps, I just mean as "first party" option.) They may even "port" the .Net runtime library to Java so that Android apps wouldn't be using Oracle's APIs at all.

    I see this more as a strategic move against Oracle than anything else.

  6. 10 LET M$ = "Microsoft" by tepples · · Score: 1

    Says the guy who posts "M$FT"....

    Before MS-DOS, Microsoft was known for interpreters of line-numbered BASIC, where all string variable names ended with $. Someone probably just forgot the

    10 LET M$ = "MICROSO"

  7. Re:EEE by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

    I thought all the browsers were phasing out npapi and that java was pretty much done at this point. {except javascript}

  8. To fight Oracle by tepples · · Score: 1

    My first thought was that Microsoft and Google were joining to fight Oracle. If Microsoft and Google make the .NET Framework appear more open than the Java platform and less of a legal risk, Java will become deprecated in new designs. Then that's one fewer Rich American Called Larry Ellison that we have to worry about.

    1. Re:To fight Oracle by SScorpio · · Score: 1

      I always thought the A stood for asshole?

    2. Re:To fight Oracle by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      Then that's one fewer Rich American Called Larry Ellison that we have to worry about.

      Oh god, you mean there's more than one rich asshole named Larry Ellison? One was more than enough!

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
  9. Re:Black holes of pure evil merge by rock_climbing_guy · · Score: 1

    But I thought they already had Microsoft, don't they?

    --
    Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
  10. Google doing an embrace and extend on Microsoft? by JustNiz · · Score: 2

    Could this really be Google pulling an "embrace, extend, extinguish" maneuver on Microsoft? That would be awesome because payback is long overdue.

    What with this, and the recent announcement that Microsoft have joined the Linux foundation as a Platinum member, I'm wondering what hideous love-child we will see emerge.

    I'm desperately hoping that Google will at least have the sense to keep Microsoft completely away from the Android kernel and system.

  11. Re:EEE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This EEE mentality died with Ballmer's departure

    How's that working out for Nokia's phone division?

  12. Re:Google doing an embrace and extend on Microsoft by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

    I'm more hoping they intend to give the finger to Oracle by making C# a first class citizen on Android, and deprecating Java.

    C# is a better language anyway, and Google's adoption of Java has kept a language on life support that... well, it's not a terrible language, but it has a Donald Trump of an owner if you know what I mean. Better to move on to something both technically superior and politically undamaged.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  13. Re:Google doing an embrace and extend on Microsoft by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

    I'm more hoping they intend to give the finger to Oracle by making C# a first class citizen on Android, and deprecating Java.

    C# is a better language anyway, and Google's adoption of Java has kept a language on life support that... well, it's not a terrible language, but it has a Donald Trump of an owner if you know what I mean. Better to move on to something both technically superior and politically undamaged.

    To say that Google's adoption has kept Java in life support is a bit of a stretch. Do people realize the sheer volume of software written in Java? Java in the Enterprise exists on its own. Android could stop existing today, and it would have no impact on Java's viability.

    With that said, I agree with you. C# is superior as a language than Java. Having worked in both, that's the opinion I've formed regarding both. Either is fine for the job, though I'd prefer C# to become more widely available outside Microsoft platforms.

  14. Re:Google doing an embrace and extend on Microsoft by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    Oh dear god please no. .net sucks ass.

  15. Re:Black holes of pure evil merge by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Ain't .NET a part of Microsoft? Or did I miss something?

  16. Re:"Similar to an open standard" by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Like somewhat pregnant

  17. Re:EEE by exomondo · · Score: 1

    This is the Embrace phase...

    Phase of what? The only thing "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" has ever been tied to is Java and HTML web standards, so if that is anything to go buy then attributing EEE to something is the precursor to that thing becoming hugely popular and widely used and adopted.

    People here said the same thing about Microsoft's contributions to the Linux kernel and hey what do you know, those people were wrong again. Though it shouldn't be surprising given so many in the community broadly dismissed products like the iPad and iPhone, prophesized about the popularity of open source consoles like Ouya, constantly predict the death of Microsoft and the Year of the Linux desktop. Frankly if you want to know what the trend in technology is just look at the prevailing opinion on slashdot and know that it's the opposite of that.

  18. don't click "Is this Genuine Linux?" button by swschrad · · Score: 1

    CCclippy will erase your drive.

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
  19. Re:Black holes of pure evil merge by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    MSFT quit trying to poorly ape Apple when they got rid of the sweaty monkey and instead are trying to poorly ape Google, complete with all their spying, under Nutella?

    Ever since Nutella took over MSFT has been opening up their software and tools because now you are the product just as you are with Google. This means if Google or Torvalds or anybody else wants to use .NET go right ahead, no nasty contracts anymore because their money isn't coming from software but from your data instead. Whether you consider this an improvement or not is up to you but with the majority of Americans happy to hand their data and every detail of their personal lives to companies like FB? It appears like it or not that is the future of software.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  20. Re:Google doing an embrace and extend on Microsoft by just+another+AC · · Score: 1

    Oh dear god please no. .net sucks ass.

    That's a very unemotional and informative analysis you have done there. I feel so much more enlightened from reading it.
    And what language should I code in, that does not "suck ass" and is a suitable substitution?

    Personally of all the languages I have been made to code in, C# has been amongst the least sucky.

  21. Re:C# vs. Java by just+another+AC · · Score: 1

    C# just works.

    Is that because the IDE now runs on Apple hardware? :P

  22. Re:Black holes of pure evil merge by Shikaku · · Score: 1

    The result can't be good.

    Microsoft, .NET, and Google? If they can somehow rope Oracle into the mix, they'd have the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,.

    The four horsemen of the apocalypse approach.

    War: Oracle, for suing nonstop.
    Famine: Google, for never being able to satisfy themselves by making/buying services (eating) then abandoning them.
    Pestilence: Microsoft, for being ubiquitous and spreading itself like a plague.
    Death: Adobe, for killing off it's suite and making it a yearly subscription, and for having a death cliff learning curve second only to Dwarf Fortress.

  23. Re:C# vs. Java by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    But most of that ecosystem does not apply to Android.

  24. Re: C# vs. Java by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    Java did lambdas like it did generics - half-assed. Look at this crap:

    https://docs.oracle.com/javase...

    DoubleToIntFunction, LongToDouble function etc. All the permutations had to be written by hand, and if you write a library that uses lambdas, you'll have to do the same.

    And why? Because that's the only way to define a function type that won't box its arguments (since generics are still type-erased, and will result in boxing). Which is what you normally want for the sake of performance.

    In C#, there's just Action and Func generic delegates, for up to 16 parameter types.

  25. Re: C# vs. Java by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    No, the performance is "not very fast". If that were the case, java.util.function namespace, and all those interfaces in it, wouldn't have existed. But it does, because perf sucks, and you need hacks like that to make it decent.

    This has nothing to do with number crunching, by the way. This is more about memory pressure than CPU perf. If you box every integer on every lambda call, that's a lot for GC to clean up.

    And all the things that you list for C# are also true for Java. Except C# generally has better versions of all of them.

  26. Re: C# vs. Java by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    I never disputed that. C# was always a "better Java". Back when it was at 1.0, the differences were largely syntactical. But C# improved much faster than Java did, mainly because the design team is less conservative, and also because it wasn't quite as much mired in backwards compatibility. So by now, it has a great many features that Java doesn't have or only recently got (and as a consequence, the C# ecosystem has been using those features for a long time - there aren't many Java libraries designed around lambdas, for example, but in C# they've been around for 8 years now), and for those features that both languages do have, C# implementation of them is generally better.

    At this point, it makes a lot more sense to just leave Java be, and treat it like we treat COBOL - as a language that served its purpose well in its due time, and is on legacy support now due to all the code that was written in it, but which doesn't need to be evolved. And run with C# (or one of the other newer contenders, like Kotlin) for future evolution.