Comments for Microsoft Open Sourcing .NET

Microsoft Open Sourcing .NET

2007-10-03T17:54:58Z

Microsoft announced this morning that the source code for its .NET framework libraries is being opened to the world, allowing outside developers to see inside when developing their own software in the .NET framework.

It's hard to say what the incentive was for this move, it could be that .NET adoption in the developer community has been so small that a drastic step was needed or this could be a strategy to prepare for a big push of SilverLight, Microsoft's new runtime for Rich Internet Applications. The .NET framework is also at the center of Vista, which so far no one has wanted to use at length.

We're still chewing on the significance of this announcement; hopefully some .NET developers can chime in in comments. Update: Unsurprisingly, Mary Jo Foley's All About Microsoft blog has excellent coverage of this announcement. See discussion as well via Techmeme.

Comment from Robert Scoble on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T18:06:45Z

It is absolutely false to say that .NET is at the center of Vista. Absolutely NOT true. There isn't a line of .NET code in the core OS.

Comment from Alex Iskold on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T18:11:26Z

@ Robert: Marshall meant applications not the kernel. Of course the kernel is in C++ and assembly, but aren't utility applications like Calculator, etc. written in C#?

Alex

Comment from Krish on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T18:22:07Z

Is it going to be under an open source license or under Microsoft's twisted licenses to share code. If it is the latter, I wouldn't call it an interesting move.

Comment from Ryan Stewart on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T18:27:16Z

My take was that it's more of a developer benefit than anything else. They're not letting people contribute to the source or even modify/redistribute so it's just a way for devs to look at how the framework was written. I think it's great for RIA devs as WPF is included.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=562

=Ryan
rstewart@adobe.com

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T18:29:35Z

Thanks for comments, all. Krish: it's under the Microsoft Reference License, so as Ryan says above - it's only good for so much for now probably. Sounds like you'd know better than me, though :)

Comment from Varun on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T18:29:52Z

.Net Rules the enterprise and not the developer community as far as I see it. This move may be aimed at increasing the adoption among the Developer community.. Not a big deal though

Comment from John Eckman on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T18:38:25Z

The key is, as others have noted, that release source code isn't the same thing as open sourcing something.

The MS Reference License is fundamentally not open - specifically prohibits most of what the OSI describes in the Open Source Definition.

Maybe has some educational impact, but I don't see much beyond that.

Comment from Bjorn on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T18:45:48Z

"it could be that .NET adoption in the developer community has been so small that a drastic step was needed "

uhmm? I think .NET is pretty damn popular.

Comment from Justin Kistner on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T18:52:34Z

.NET is popular, but the size of the development community is not as great as the open source alternatives.

Comment from Andrew on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T19:02:35Z

I don't regard this as open source: "Reference use" means use of the software within your company as a reference, in read only form, for the sole purposes of debugging your products, maintaining your products, or enhancing the interoperability of your products with the software, and specifically excludes the right to distribute the software outside of your company.

Comment from Robert on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T19:10:14Z

>>>> .NET is popular, but the size of the development community is not as great as the open source alternatives.

Huh? The ASP.NET Forums (http://forums.asp.net/) have more than 2000 posts a day on average. And the job market for .NET is red hot at the moment compared to other technologies: http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=asp.net%2C+php%2C+ruby+on+rails&l=

Comment from PJ on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T19:30:53Z

-"it could be that .NET adoption in the developer community has been so small"

Is there a specific measurement or statistics that you used to make that statement?

Comment from Steve Murch on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T20:10:41Z

One of the most sigificant aspects of this announcement is that it will make it much easier for 3rd-party hardware manufacturers to support the .NET platform on their devices. You could conceivably see a Linux .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR), Macintosh, embedded systems, and other devices implementing their own CLR. That would be a pretty tremendous boon to developers and also Microsoft.

[fair disclosure -- I worked for MSFT from '91-'97]

Comment from Aaronontheweb on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T20:38:31Z

-"it could be that .NET adoption in the developer community has been so small"

.NET adoption from the developer community has been so small? I guess that‚Äôs why C# has increased from a 25.1% to a 34.9% share of the total developer community in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

from eWeek: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2177299,00.asp

from my blog:
http://www.ajaxninja.com/?p=201

Comment from Darren on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T20:41:57Z

@ Steve #13

Isn't that what Mono is? I think this will be a big help to the mono guys and thats about it.

I am a .net developer and I can tell you now the Job market is pretty damn good for us .net guys and gals.

Its not heard of so much in the "web20" and start up blogs because many are using ruby or php. mySpace is a .net app.

My startup is using .net.

Comment from Andy Brudtkuhl on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T21:01:17Z

2 things: the market for .NET development is HUGE so there is no need to attract new developers, although that is always nice.

the other matter is that the framework is open *for reference* not for contribution - meaning that it's not open source.

It's simply a benefit for developers and nothing else. Although for us it is big when debugging our applications.

Comment from Justin on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T21:19:26Z

Wow, it is amazing when people say things like this and just get away with it. Are you required to do any research at all? Have you ever been anywhere like codeproject.com? If you are going to make comments like "it could be that .NET adoption in the developer community has been so small that a drastic step was needed" at least back it up with facts, otherwise keep it to yourself. It would be nice to see something objective coming out of sites like this every once in a while rather than the torch carrying articles that are usually published.

Comment from Rex Dixon on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T22:01:42Z

.NET has been for years adopted on the corporate America level. The last actual band I was in, the drummer was a .NET developer, and my BIL who is an IT recruiter tells me "If you know .NET or C#, there is high demand for those jobs NOW!" - So I will have to agree - .NET is out there and in demand as far as a development platform - at least in corporate America!

Have no fear Marshall - neither of us work for corporate America - and aren't we glad! ;)

Rex

Comment from Justin B on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T22:23:40Z

"it could be that .NET adoption in the developer community has been so small that a drastic step was needed"

What an astoundingly ignorant statement. You guys a RRW need to get out of the echo chamber that is dominated by ROR and company names with dropped vowels. .NET is huge. The study I linked to is already three years old and already .NET adoption was a large chunk of the business and it has only grown since then.

http://www.numbersix.com/presentations/ThePlatformWarsx.pdf

Comment from chrisco on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T22:24:25Z

From an end-user: I am not a fan of Vista. I just bought a copy of Windows XP Pro to install on my new laptop, which came with Vista. At the same time I setup the system to be a dual-boot with Ubuntu.

Comment from miles thompson on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T22:57:58Z

The headline is all wrong - Microsoft is most definitely *not* open sourcing .net. There are even some that say the move is designed to confuse link
people as to what is or is not real open source, and thus muddy the waters.

As a .NET developer I'm very pleased about this, but its definitely a developer move not a market position move.

Comment from Justin Kistner on 2007-10-03

2007-10-03T23:08:36Z

Here's an article that breaks down the popularity of programming languages based on several factors. PHP has more than twice the number of articles in Google and 20% more jobs on Craigslist. Statistics from Sourceforge show that projects developed in .NET are falling and projects in all other open source languages are rising. What matters is that even if there are areas where .NET is doing well in terms of popularity, Microsoft should be concerned about open source projects that are even close to their market share, much less where they are getting beaten outright.

It would be nice to see something objective coming out of sites like this every once in a while rather than the torch carrying articles that are usually published.

Don't hyperbolize. Read/Write Web does an excellent job with sourcing their data. Making statements that are common knowledge to educated developers is hardly poor sourcing.

Comment from aL on 2007-10-03

2007-10-04T00:12:35Z

wow thats one uninformed article..
.net is huge, that has been coverd in the comments all eady..

the statement about .net beeing a core part of vista.. now thats just completyl false. n.net is no more at the core of vista than it is at the core of xp..

indeed, if more utilities (calc for instance that someone claimed beeing written in .net) were written in .net vista whould be a far better os.. take media player 11 for instance.. the ui implementation is abslute shit.. resizing the wmp11 when have aero enables reveals the old gtk+ ui behind all the fanccy aero stuff.. now compare that to for instance the NY times reader (implemented in wpf) the latter is just magnitudes faster/smoother/better (ui wise, they are completly diffrent apps afer all)

Comment from Jason on 2007-10-03

2007-10-04T00:18:04Z

After reading all the comments... Ouch. Get some facts before you bash .Net! :)

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2007-10-03

2007-10-04T00:23:06Z

thanks for the education, everyone!

Comment from kevin on 2007-10-03

2007-10-04T01:08:42Z

If you're stuck, and blind, in silicon valley then maybe "adoption in the developer community has been so small" ... everywhere else in the world it's not very quite the opposite, as the above comments mention.

Comment from Steve Murch on 2007-10-03

2007-10-04T01:56:35Z

Just to clarify my comments (#13), I meant that by opening up the source code (even though in a read-only), they'll be making it much easier for the vendors and/or community surrounding other "proprietary" (i.e., non-msft, non-apple, non-my-favorite-os, or whatever your perspective is :-)) hardware to implement the .NET CLR.

So in theory, someone could write a Linux CLR more easily & quickly now because they can look inside the code and get some ideas. Or a Palm OS developer could take a subset of it and build their own compact framework for Palm. Xerox could build a .NET CLR into their high-end copiers more easily. etc. By opening up the code, even in a read-only way, adoption is helped because platform authors can scan through their interfaces for completeness and get examples of implementation. In essence, ports become much easier when you can see the source code.

All in all, this move is likely to give another boost to .NET, though as every other commmenter has written, not that it really needs it. Stop by codeproject.com, asp.net, codeplex, 4guysfromrolla, or whatever your favorite .net/c# site is, and you'll see it's alive and growing rapidly.

Comment from Dave Gardner on 2007-10-04

2007-10-04T08:29:51Z

This has got to be one of the most poorly written and inaccurate articles on R/WW for a long time. Please do some basic research next time you are considering making such sweeping statements.

@Justin Kistner (#22): The article you refer to has not been updated for 2 years! Hardly a good source of accurate and up to date data. How about something a bit more recent such as http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm, which paints an entirely different story of .NET popularity. As to the Sourceforge "statistics" you linked to, it showed that C# projects are increasing at a very healthy rate. Besides it's common knowledge to us "educated developers" that there are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies, and statistics ;-)

Comment from Nic Wise on 2007-10-04

2007-10-04T09:10:35Z

Wow, so that was a somewhat knee jerk reaction post... rather like something I'd expect from the MSM (ie no research at all, just basic "opinion") not RWW.

.NET has quite good penetration in the market, thanks very much. Pays my bills quite well. :)

This puts MS in the same place that Sun was before it opened up the JVM - source available, but you, the developer, can't change it (well, you can, but you can't submit changes). Given that the whole point of .NET and Java is to have a stable VM, I dont think opensourcing it is a good idea anyway.....

Oh, and one other thing: this has NO relevance at all to anyone who is not a (.NET) developer. End users will never need - or need to know about - this.

Comment from Wilecoyote on 2007-10-05

2007-10-06T02:05:48Z

I really could care less what motivated the move... It makes my job easier... Let me say that politics always hinders productivity... and in our industry folks... its always about productivity... Marshal... if you want to find out about something... perhaps you can do some research on the net, or pick up a book or two... instead of posting some inflamatory comments on your blog.

ps... if you need to see some source code bad enough, you will find a way to get into it... perhaps someone at Msft recognises this and just wanted to make the platform easier to work with.

Comment from Ritesh Chitlangi on 2007-10-10

2007-10-10T11:25:36Z

.NET adoption hasn't been slow, but I don't see why debug symbols for .NET libraries would "increase programmer productivity". Not like you can do anything about a mishandled exception in closed-source library code. If the error is being handled properly, you would get a proper exception message anyway without debug symbols.

I do some .NET professional development, but this isn't exciting in the least.