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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

#381
post #271

.NET is the most open, non-trivial ecosystem I have ever participated in. I experienced 2 different problems with .NET (back in 2.x/3.x days), and was able to have interaction with the actual MS developers on their Github issue page without any sort of bullshit overhead process. Within days, I saw traction on my comments and within months I saw PRs that ultimately resolved the issue I presented. The following year, I…

being open is not about not paying but using it however you like, not constrained to VisualGarbage XYZ or Windows 15-xtra ultra edition

It clearly isn't about that; .Net Framework and OmniSharp are MIT Licensed so you can use it however you like. From the Github issue linked in the article: "Once the “LSP Tools Host” is complete, this will become the default experience for the C# for VS Code extension. Existing users will be able to choose between the open-source OmniSharp powered system that exists today, or the new “'LSP Tools Host” which will provide access to additional experiences."

That's freedom in action. Microsoft has a fork of two open projects which they are working on however they like. If you don't want to use their work, you can fork and develop .Net and VSCodium and OmniSharp however you like. Now look at the the top GitHub comment: "once LSP Tools Host gets full attention, OmniSharp will slowly die out (especially if the OmniSharp team is working on LSP Tools Host). Which is of course the last step, extinguish."

Which says: "I don't want to develop the thing I want to use, and if Microsoft doesn't develop it for me and give it to me for free, this is equivalent to Microsoft extinguishing it".

MIT License grants "rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software", and not "you can have what other people develop on this" or "the developers of this will never make non-free software in future". https://mit-license.org/

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

#382
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are unaware of how much better it is with the other ecosystems. Probably all of them except the ones controlled by Apple, Oracle and IBM. You want to know what's better than having actual MS developers interact with your issue on GH? Being able to submit a MR yourself and actually have that MR be merged in within days of it being good to go. That's not just a dream, that's the standard way of operating for most l…

> "You want to know what's better than having actual MS developers interact with your issue on GH? Being able to submit a MR yourself and actually have that MR be merged in within days of it being good to go." .NET isn't your average hobby project - it's used everywhere. It's imperative that changes go through the proper due process here. It takes time to prepare design documents and review them, discuss the changes…

The guy's got code into Ruby, rustc, and Rails. I'm pretty sure he knows what it takes to get things into master at a widely used project.

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

#383
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are unaware of how much better it is with the other ecosystems. Probably all of them except the ones controlled by Apple, Oracle and IBM. You want to know what's better than having actual MS developers interact with your issue on GH? Being able to submit a MR yourself and actually have that MR be merged in within days of it being good to go. That's not just a dream, that's the standard way of operating for most l…

You can do this in the .NET ecosystem too, they accept pull requests from the community regularly. I have a few merged PRs in Roslyn, one in particular I made because I knew it didn't affect very many developers and would have trouble getting prioritized. Also personally the ideal situation for me is for someone who is getting paid to fix the issue to go fix it without me having to get my hands dirty.

I had the same experience, submitted a PR to Roslyn, was asked to add some additional unit tests, and was merged within days.

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

#384
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are unaware of how much better it is with the other ecosystems. Probably all of them except the ones controlled by Apple, Oracle and IBM. You want to know what's better than having actual MS developers interact with your issue on GH? Being able to submit a MR yourself and actually have that MR be merged in within days of it being good to go. That's not just a dream, that's the standard way of operating for most l…

You can do this in the .NET ecosystem too, they accept pull requests from the community regularly. I have a few merged PRs in Roslyn, one in particular I made because I knew it didn't affect very many developers and would have trouble getting prioritized. Also personally the ideal situation for me is for someone who is getting paid to fix the issue to go fix it without me having to get my hands dirty.

Bonus points if you're either not asked to transfer your copyright, or asked to transfer it to a non-profit foundation.

Personally, I'm ok with doing the work myself if I didn't pay for the product. It gives me a feeling we're all working together on a better software ecosystem, because Turing knows we need it to be better sometimes.

edit: sorry for moving the goal posts, it's definitely cool that you got MR's into Roslyn, it's an awesome project.

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

#385

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…

> 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.

Has that not been a critique of software engineers working at FAANGs? That they think they are working for a moral company while the “Don’t Be Evil” company mottos are replaced in the background with anti competitive practices and deals with authoritarian governments.

Tbh I think claiming that it’s an extremist opinion when there’s an entire century+ old political school of thought that views the entirety of capitalism as amoral, is either putting your head in the sand at the thought, or an equally extremist opinion on the good of companies

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

#386
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say companies are inherently amoral. Not evil. Subtle, but important nuance. It’s only when evil and greedy people are in charge that companies become evil. Sadly an all too common state of affairs, but not a law of the universe.

Corporations are sociopaths by their very design. Their number one mandate is to make money for their shareholders and to grow. This colours every decision they make.

> Corporations are sociopaths by their very design. Their number one mandate is to make money for their shareholders and to grow.

That's not the definition of a sociopath.

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

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some anti trust laws with teeth would help move us in the right direction!

Anti-trust aimed at individuals is called taxation. Being able to shelter wealth accumulation through loopholes that only benefit rich people asset classes is so obviously classist (and tacitly ageist against youth since it’s all old people calling these shots). Their ad and marketing budgets are basically to woo public opinion into belief billionaires should exist, however. Look at the Coinbase story; employee and i…

Employees did not lose the money they were paid for their labour. What employee wealth is gone?

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

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ikea also sells nice, solid wood, furniture. And they typically do so at a price that is much more affordable than their competitors. If you want to go into Ikea and just buy long lasting solid wood products, go ahead! Indeed I'd argue Ikea has made new solid wood furniture more accessible, heck sometimes new Ikea wood furniture is cheaper than consignment store wood furniture!

I see. Then it's OK to skirt environmental and worker protection laws, I guess. As long as the products are nice.

That’s generally been the decision the western world has settled on, which seems like an improvement in that we at least need the products to be nice

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

#389
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have not had to work with SOAP then.

Nobody does anymore, so I don't see how that counts as a valid criticism of current .Net.

If you deal with (some parts of) the public sector, you certainly will encounter SOAP. For example - those online drivers-ed courses you buy in California to get rid of a ticket? They all talk to a SOAP backend maintained by the State.

Certainly SOAP isn't everywhere the way it used to be (thankfully), but it's out there and isn't going away any time soon.

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

#390
post #239
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People forget that before about 2000 or so, Microsoft was bigger than the next 10 or so software companies, >. And had much higher profit margins that the other tech companies. IBM created the playbook, Microsoft perfected it, FAANG copied it.

One distinction between Microsoft and early FAANG (except for Apple): FAANG cut out the distributor and kept those profits themselves. Microsoft always had distributors as a key component of their platform sales.

Presumably the distributor is the company that supplies the internet connection we now consider mandatory.
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