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Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform

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

#141
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trying to isolate Desktop Linux as an irrelevant layer They're obviously doing that, but they don't really need to. Desktop Linux is its own enemy. 2 major GUI toolkits, frequent upgrades to them, generally with breaking changes, multiple DEs, frequent upgrades to them, also with breaking changes, a full decades of bickering over a solution that solves actual end user and operator problems in a standardizing way (s…

I'll just say that while Linux desktop is not perfect, I see much more people who're "assembling" their own environments to work at speeds I can't ever imagine. I'm part of a community who does amazing things with all these fragmented parts and assemble unimaginable things while staying productive and inventing new ways of work. The overall maturity of these small parts have not reversed the tide, but actually change…

> people who're "assembling" their own environments to work at speeds I can't ever imagine.

People who assemble cars from scratch can accomplish things from that are amazing too, but only 0 1% of the population will ever want to do that.

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

#142
post #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 an…

It's not that a new generation of coders don't know about the past. It's more that what Microsoft did in the 90s was a preview of how all giant tech corporations behave, and now they all do the same: build empires and ecosystems wherever possible. Pretty much everything ms did in the 90s is now standard practice. E.g defacto Browser lock in? (iOS, android...). Facebook wanting to be the whole internet, Amp, App Stores, launching os features that compete with popular third parties. Champion privacy if it gives you a market differentiator, otherwise harvest whatever info you can from everywhere etc etc

One trick MS never thought of was "use mountain of cash to buy up all the manufacturing capacity"

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

#143

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…

Why didn't MS just contribute to the existing one, instead of writing its own from scratch?

Realistically it's probably also code reuse from their enterprise products(Visual Studio) which are very good at C# analysis.

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

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opinions like this have always been weird to me. Not wrong, but weird. Any contribution that M$ (remember when people would sub the S for a dollar sign?) makes to open source or open standards is to support their own bottom line and we shouldn't expect anything else. The directors have a legal responsibility to the company and to boost the share price, not for the betterment of humanity. To this effect, companies wil…

> Public companies are inherently evil by default The extremism of this positon makes it hard to swallow the message. You might as well be right, but accepting it at face value would be a huge cognitive dissonance for many people working in public companies. Basically, the “are we the baddies ?” answer would be “yes” for a huge chunk of us, and I don’t think that’s how we see it personally. Companies have to make mon…

> Basically, the “are we the baddies ?” answer would be “yes” for a huge chunk of us, and I don’t think that’s how we see it personally. Companies have to make money, but the evil label needs way more nuance.

The answer to this is that if it's nearly impossible to find a more ethical job (e.g. a non-profit medical research worker cooperative) when the system you're under doesn't economically incentivise ethical job creation. If your probability of finding one is incredibly slim, you're practically excused – you're just doing what's needed to have a normal life.

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

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key tools of the platform not being open means the platform is either not open or not useable, take your pick.

This is like saying PCs aren't open because most people use Windows.

PCs have tons of closed source firmware and BIOS. So no, PCs aren't open!

Windows isn't open. But you could argue there are open alternatives to Windows.

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

#147

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…

Why didn't MS just contribute to the existing one, instead of writing its own from scratch?

Pylance (and the open source less featured version, pyright) is architected after the Typescript language server. Which makes sense as they're both languages with unsound type systems, optional type annotations, and use type inference. By being written in TS it also runs in a web browser which is their Next Big Thing.

There isn't an Existing One, more like many existing ones with their own tradeoffs. Jedi is designed to infer the variable in your currently editing LOC. It can't type check and report issues on entire files/projects. It's also a one man project.

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

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what's more likely in this case is that MS under Satya really does want to be a good corporate citizen, but are finding themselves in a bind that threatens the whole organisation. They're spending up the wazoo on Xbox, still, to battle PlayStation. They were supposed to have conquered that market over 15 years ago and are still throwing money at it. Windows is hurting as a retail business. License costs have…

> They're spending up the wazoo on Xbox, still, to battle PlayStation. Microsofts decision to release all of their new XBox games on PC was kinda bizarre to me. It basically guarantees the XBox as a gaming console is going to lose market share to the PlayStation and eventually die out because the core gaming market is going to pick PC + PS5 + Switch (or some subset of those) as the sensible combo to be able to play a…

Then why is Sony heavily emphasizing PC too?

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

#150
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web page is FUD, but the GitHub issue is describing yet another top level management decision which is totally not helpful source code wise and reputation wise. Creating a bridging host component for tools with multiple intellisense or debugging providers is okay, but the host must be open source to control what is happening. This is a strategic move to unify VS and VS Code ... And the open source debacle is the…

This. My first reaction was - why are we posting FUD here. Then you see it: they're switching from an OSS component to a new component, which *will not be open-sourced*. Retiring code with architectural changes is fine, it's normal, it happens everywhere. I don't have a problem with it. Only the replacement should be comparable in licence. Which this one isn't.

> Retiring code with architectural changes is fine, it's normal, it happens everywhere. I don't have a problem with it. Only the replacement should be comparable in licence. Which this one isn't.

Not sure how you could perform the whole "extinguish" step without replacing any OSS/free/copyleft license with a closed-source version of it. "Extinguish" with OSS components would just be "embrace" or "extend", both of which Microsoft has already completed, so time to move on to the next step.

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