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Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

isdotnetopen.com

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Re: Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

#31

This is exactly the same as what MS did for the Python extension when the open-source LSP was replaced by the proprietary Pylance. I get the feeling that MS becomes more and more likes Google. For example, on Android, the core experience is provided by GMS while the AOSP is provided as an open-source core. In terms of VSCode, the core editor is free and open-source, but some key experience is baked by proprietary com…

The LSP situation with Python was very frustrating, because it totally breathes the oxygen out of "proper" OSS implementations.

I feel like with a _loooot_ of coordination it should be possible to have proper, open source LSP implementations that are very performant. Mainly a question of finding enough people willing to fund this work, because it's definitely work!

I personally also have gripes about ending up with some JS thing to do constant parsing and processing of files.... but I don't have anything to back it up.

Re: Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

#32
post #25
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Microsoft get labeled like this while Apple, one of the most brutally closed off companies, is loved by developers? Microsoft is very responsive on GitHub issues I have filed, and I have benefited a lot from their open source offerings, namely VS Code and F#.

Loved by developers how? Because they own Macbooks?

Basically yeah - you can show off that you are working in rich company (so by association you know who is making that sweet $$$$) because you have a new Macbook for dev work.

Re: Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

#33
I can definitely say that for me, this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. I am turning my back on the .NET ecosystem, after having written C# for 7 years. The `dotnet watch` debacle from last year, still having key parts like the debugger closed-source and now again with this: It's just too much.

I do not want to build anything of value on top of such a shady platform that's completely controlled by one Megacorporation. It's too big of a risk.

No matter how many MVPs tout "MS <3 Open Source", how can anyone still believe them after these repeated violations?

Re: Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

#34

This is exactly the same as what MS did for the Python extension when the open-source LSP was replaced by the proprietary Pylance. I get the feeling that MS becomes more and more likes Google. For example, on Android, the core experience is provided by GMS while the AOSP is provided as an open-source core. In terms of VSCode, the core editor is free and open-source, but some key experience is baked by proprietary com…

[deleted]

Re: Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

#35

.NET is open. You can find its source on Github. The .NET platform being open doesn't mean everything targeting the .NET platform is open, too.

A problem of the .NET ecosystem is that there is no open source debugger for C#. The Microsoft-provided debugger has strict license terms that only allow it to be used in Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code.

JetBrains needed to write their own debugger for their cross-platform IDE Rider. Luckily they already knew a lot about .NET to do this and it turned out very well but it's still not the official debugger and also not open source.

Re: Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

#36
post #18

This is exactly the same as what MS did for the Python extension when the open-source LSP was replaced by the proprietary Pylance. I get the feeling that MS becomes more and more likes Google. For example, on Android, the core experience is provided by GMS while the AOSP is provided as an open-source core. In terms of VSCode, the core editor is free and open-source, but some key experience is baked by proprietary com…

It appears offering free beer forever isn't sustainable, even when one has deep pockets, go figure.

Sustainable and optimal are different. For a company like Microsoft at least.

Re: Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

#37
This sort of thing has been MS's playbook since I was a kid, or earlier. It surprises me that people are still surprised when things like this happen. I especially think someone with Miguel de Icaza's experience should know better[0].

It's interesting to see the generational difference here. Many of my somewhat-younger (even only by 7-10 years) programmer/techie friends just don't remember the Microsoft of the 80s and 90s, and see all the "good" they've been doing with the open source community in more recent times, and think MS is a pretty good corporate citizen in the tech world.

But in reality, MS has just done a great job whitewashing their image[1] in the past 15 years, especially in the past 8 years since Ballmer stepped down and Nadella took the reins. I do believe they're a better, less anti-competitive company than they used to be. But they're still the same company in many ways. I think a big part of their "play nice" strategy was born out of necessity, since they heavily dropped the ball in the late 90s/early 00s when the internet/WWW was really coming into its own, and then again in the early/mid 10s when Windows Phone failed miserably. They just lost the clout to do the anti-competitive bullshit they used to pull. But the desire to do all this stuff is still there.

[0] It was clear to me that MS intended .NET to be a wholly-proprietary, Windows-only technology until de Icaza and co. built Mono, when MS grudgingly embraced it. This proprietary extension feels like their standard follow-on of "extend and extinguish", though it's coming a bit later than we'd expect.

[1] Bill Gates has also done an amazing job rehabilitating his image through philanthropy. A lot of people forget how his actions at MS probably held back progress in the computing industry for at least a decade (or two?), through forced lock-in and anti-competitive behavior.

Re: Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

#39
post #23

Well, I don't really think this would be considered truly evil except by the likes of Stallman. They wanted to make an awesome plugin to C#, they chose to do it closed source to extend their vscode moat. It's quite corporate of them, but i still get their point.

> Well, I don't really think this would be considered truly evil except by the likes of Stallman

Stallman would consider anything remotely closed source like Chrome unethical.

He is not that nuanced.

Re: Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

#40
post #9

I'm somewhat confused what's going on here.

Now that .NET is easy to run on non-Windows platforms, Microsoft is likely trying to figure out what's the business case.

By keeping the tools to them, Microsoft can try to offer the best developer experience. Hopefully (from Microsoft point of view) this pushes developers to use services from their ecosystem (Github, Azure).

It's likely that in the future more developers are actually doing the development remotely. Not checking out the code to local machine, but instead using IDE which communicates with the server component. Microsoft has Github Code Spaces [1], JetBrains has Fleet[2]

[1] https://github.com/features/codespaces [2] https://www.jetbrains.com/fleet/

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