Despite best efforts .NET is still not an open platform • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by lin83 » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:57 AM UTC

jsmeaton wrote: post #133

EdwardDiego wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The existing one was an open source Microsoft project. Then they built a new closed-source version as a replacement. To be fair, pylance is orders of magnitude better with regards to performance. But I just don’t get what the reasoning was to make pylance closed source. It’s baffling.

I believe the previous Python support extension started out as an independent open source project until Microsoft hired its main developer.

> It’s baffling.

Vendor Lock in? Same reason you can't use the VSCode marketplace of mostly open source extensions on a non-Microsoft build of VSCode or any of the remote work features.

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

#162

Post by fhkaQ » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:57 AM UTC

thejosh wrote: post #22

chenzhekl wrote: post #15

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…

Yep, they saw no real backlash to doing this for the Python one, then decided to do it here as well.

Of course not. Python is in the hands of people with a mixed contribution history (to say the least) who want to preserve their jobs at Google, Microsoft, RedHat etc. The rest of the Python "community" does as they are told.

They are not in a position to voice dissent, unlike de Icaza, who has a great programming record and courage.

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

#163

Post by croes » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:58 AM UTC

blagie wrote: post #156

kelnos wrote: 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…

Companies aren't people. The set of people in Microsoft is completely different in 2022 than it was in 1995. A quarter-century has passed. It's not the same organization as it was back then. It has very little relationship to it. I've been consistently surprised by Microsoft doing non-evil things over the past decade, until I accepted that I no longer had reason to hate it. Conversely, for a while, I was surprised by…

According to the Supreme Court companies are people

https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-...

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

#164

Post by natrys » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:59 AM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #117

oblio wrote: 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'm willing to bet $100 that this discussion will look the same way in 15 years I'm willing to take it, but only because I think there won't be a Linux in 15 years. And yeah. Android doesn't count. It's essentially an enclave that runs Dalvik programs. Linux basic assumptions about hardware don't hold on mobile. I think Linux is suffering from the Lisp curse. Because they never choosed a DE, there is endless splint…

In a market share sense, Linux doesn't and never existed in the desktop in first place. However it's ubiquitous in servers and that success has nothing to do with a DE. Its universal success in server space also means many more people are acquainted with Linux today than Lisp in its heyday. If you consider the current 2% market share in desktop to be "existing", I will posit that these people aren't going away just because of fragmented UI, because I believe bulk majority of them are spill over technical users who use Linux despite the state of DE.

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

#165

Post by rossng » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 10:02 AM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #132

someotherperson wrote: post #71

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…

IKEA is private. Do you not think it would behave quite differently were it a typical public company?

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

#166

Post by qayxc » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 10:03 AM UTC

gertrunde wrote: post #129

headmelted wrote: post #68

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…

Azure struggling to compete with AWS? I wonder if this is specific to particular spaces, like very large enterprises maybe? In the SME space, Azure is significantly more dominant in my experience. All those companies where "Can't get fired for buying Microsoft" applies, went to Azure.

GP seems to be oblivious to actual stats [0].

Last year, Azure was the 2nd biggest player in cloud computing, being "only" 2/3 of AWS' market share, but still having more than 3x the market share of the next biggest competitor (Google).

Indeed hardly something I'd call "struggling".

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1202770/hyperscaler-iaas...

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

#167

Post by croes » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 10:03 AM UTC

gigel82 wrote: post #99

konsuko wrote: post #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 Megac…

.NET was open sourced in 2016, that's 6 years ago. It looks like you were 1+ years fully within the ecosystem before any part of it was OSS, and now you're demanding new features they write get open sourced as well? Reminds of that time they introduced WiFi on planes; it was a brand new thing, and they let folks on the flight use it for free - but of course being a new tech it broke down after about an hour. There wa…

They replace an existing open source feature with a closed source one.

So that's totally different.

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

#168

Post by deadbunny » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 10:04 AM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #153

makeitdouble wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I am convinced that 99.999% of the people that claim to be "anti-Capitalist" are in reality anti- Corporativist . It's way too easy for people working at big companies to think "the company might be evil, but not me / my team". The Corporation gives everyone a moral shield that lets them rationalize all the shit that happens, but the money that pays their salary and the stock options they get all come from the same s…

> It's way too easy for people working at big companies to think "the company might be evil, but not me / my team".

See Better Off Ted for a great look at this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Off_Ted

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

#169

Post by actionfromafar » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 10:05 AM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #132

someotherperson wrote: post #71

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…

Funny, I don't see any good from IKEA when you look at the greater picture. More waste, un-accounted for externalities all over the board (labour laws, environment exploitation), extremely well-honed organisation designed to evade taxes through "charities".

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

#170

Post by jka » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 10:06 AM UTC

someotherperson wrote: post #71

kelnos wrote: 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…

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…

> The directors have a legal responsibility to the company and to boost the share price, not for the betterment of humanity.

That's an often-repeated maxim, but it's not universally agreed to be true.

Quoting https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/08/24/stakeholder-gover... for example:

"The fiduciary duty of the board is to promote the value of the corporation. In fulfilling that duty, directors must exercise their business judgment in considering and reconciling the interests of various stakeholders—including shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, the environment and communities—and the attendant risks and opportunities for the corporation.

Indeed, the board’s ability to consider other stakeholder interests is not only uncontroversial—it is a matter of basic common sense and a fundamental component of both risk management and strategic planning."