Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

isdotnetopen.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 500 posts

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

#81

Post by littlecranky67 »

bayindirh wrote: post #73
kelnos wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, agreed. Didn't realize how much Canonical was helping with WSL, though it of course makes sense that they're doing so, unfortunately. > De Icasa is not a saint either by pushing Mono on GNOME and Linux Eh, I think interoperability is good, and reverse-engineering Windows frameworks/technology has a long history in the open-source world (WINE & Samba being two prominent examples). I was disappointed when they sol…

> Didn't realize how much Canonical was helping with WSL, though it of course makes sense that they're doing so, unfortunately. Eh, they have a dedicated team for enabling WSL/Ubuntu desktop in Canonical. They're fueling the effort. > Eh, I think interoperability is good, and reverse-engineering Windows frameworks/technology has a long history in the open-source world (WINE & Samba being two prominent examples). IIRC…

> His joint venture with MS what turned everything sour for many people, incl. me.

Why did it turn things sour for you? I mean, ever since the Xamarin acquisition, MS .NET has become open + cross plattform and Xamarin which was a commercial/paid-for product is open too. VSCode is a first class citizen for free C#/.NET development on macOS and Linux. Not saying all of this is related to de Icaza getting bought by MS, but just saying ever since the ecosystem has become completely open.

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

#82

Post by littlecranky67 »

I don't understand the fuzz about it. There are a lot of commercial/closed-source devtools out there (IntelliJ, Rider) for otherwise open languages/platforms that devs are obviously happy to use and pay for. We are not demanding that every Java/Python/PHP etc. tool is open source and free, why is there this double-standard for Microsoft?

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

#83

Post by exyi »

mmgutz wrote: post #74
foepys wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 als…

Did JetBrains open source their debugger?

No, they are equally "guilty". At least they don't brag how OSS friendly they are.

There is open source debugger from Samsung (https://github.com/Samsung/netcoredbg/), but it does not see much use.

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

#84

Post by bayindirh »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #81
bayindirh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Didn't realize how much Canonical was helping with WSL, though it of course makes sense that they're doing so, unfortunately. Eh, they have a dedicated team for enabling WSL/Ubuntu desktop in Canonical. They're fueling the effort. > Eh, I think interoperability is good, and reverse-engineering Windows frameworks/technology has a long history in the open-source world (WINE & Samba being two prominent examples). IIRC…

> His joint venture with MS what turned everything sour for many people, incl. me. Why did it turn things sour for you? I mean, ever since the Xamarin acquisition, MS .NET has become open + cross plattform and Xamarin which was a commercial/paid-for product is open too. VSCode is a first class citizen for free C#/.NET development on macOS and Linux. Not saying all of this is related to de Icaza getting bought by MS,…

If you're a .NET developer who uses Linux, yes that sounds nice.

On the other hand. Consider a prominent member one of the biggest open source projects leaves the project, joins Microsoft, and praises Microsoft and pushes semi-closed Microsoft technologies on every project, claiming Linux is dead without Microsoft, and we need to compromise by allowing these non-free technologies and porting almost everything to it.

All is done when Microsoft tried to copy LibreOffice (then OpenOffice) formats, created OOXML family of semi-open formats, and push them as ISO standards to bolster their file formats to kill other office applications for good.

DeIcaza (knowingly or unknowingly) was a part of an concentrated and coordinated effort to EEE Linux, and the open frameworks around it.

I never used and won't use any Mono based application in my personal systems and servers I solely install and manage.

On the other hand, VSCode is not free or open source. This makes it null and void in my radar, because I want my whole toolchain to be open and free, because when I left a project alone, someone should be able to get the whole toolchain and continue development. I don't like the idea of source code being locked in a proprietary development environment and hence suffocated on a whim with a choice of an external party.

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

#85

Post by nyanpasu64 »

xnorswap wrote: post #54
tempodox wrote: post #38

The actual announcement is here: https://github.com/omnisharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/5276 It's not quite as dramatic as the OP is making it out to be.

These things almost never are, and the purists risk a purist death spiral. It reminds me of the closed source drivers debate. Someone has a proprietary component they want to incorporate into an open source system. The purists demand they open source that proprietary software if they want it integrated into the open source. The developer wants a compromise, but the purists won't allow it, so the developer is left to…

Microsoft is not releasing a partly open-source program, they're replacing an open-source {Python, C#} extension with a proprietary one that won't run on VS Codium or Arch Linux packages.

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

#86

Post by robertlagrant »

kelnos wrote: post #69
bayindirh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a lot of younger developers and "tech citizens" think MS is a saint now. They need to love Open Source / Linux because their platform has lost to the openness, composability and lightness of Linux. They lost the server space, but they're retrying to seize desktop from Linux with WSL and invading the developer tools space and trying to isolate Desktop Linux as an "irrelevant layer which runs MS software and techn…

Yup, agreed. Didn't realize how much Canonical was helping with WSL, though it of course makes sense that they're doing so, unfortunately. > De Icasa is not a saint either by pushing Mono on GNOME and Linux Eh, I think interoperability is good, and reverse-engineering Windows frameworks/technology has a long history in the open-source world (WINE & Samba being two prominent examples). I was disappointed when they sol…

> even though I'm sure it made sense at the time

I think it definitely made sense. Xamarin was conceived in a world of many mobile platforms, and so it was the only way to develop cross-platform apps. Now there are basically two, and it's a much closer call.

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

#88

Post by nyanpasu64 »

foepys wrote: post #44
Lio wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth pointing out that VS Code is not really open source. The builds are proprietary. It’s based on an open source core but the builds can include anything that Microsoft thinks will be commercially useful to it.

There is a libre version of VS Code but it is missing features like access to the official extension marketplace. https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium

And all of Microsoft's proprietary extensions look for official proprietary VS Code and refuse to run on open-source builds lacking Microsoft's private key.

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

#89

Post by exyi »

foepys wrote: post #44
Lio wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth pointing out that VS Code is not really open source. The builds are proprietary. It’s based on an open source core but the builds can include anything that Microsoft thinks will be commercially useful to it.

There is a libre version of VS Code but it is missing features like access to the official extension marketplace. https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium

It works reasonably well though, most extensions are in the libre open-vsx.org gallery. Only problem for me is the missing .NET debugger...

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

#90

Post by yread »

foepys wrote: post #35
DeathArrow wrote: post #14

.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 als…

you can use lldb that's open source
Post reply on HN