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Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

roslyn.codeplex.com

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Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#311

Post by tracker1 »

einhverfr wrote: post #294
JohnBooty wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having followed a fair number of MS bloggers/podcasts currently in and around their web tools (ASP.NET, MVC, etc) teams... I honestly believe they understand the value of open source. Visual Studio and their MVC framework continue to impress me (I mostly work in Ruby today, but have to maintain some .NET stuff) and MS takes inspiration from successful open-source tools and frameworks where needed. Many of their recen…

I think you have to define "they" here when you say "they understand the value of open source." There are a lot of people at Microsoft who really do understand the value of open source. When I worked there ten years ago, there were plenty who did. When I wrote interop papers as an outside consultant in 2007, I worked with a unit that did. But Microsoft also has a bunch of real problems that make it hard for them to r…

Outside of my 9-5 work, I've probably deployed nearly as much C# code (via Mono) under Linux as I have under Windows. In a few ways it's been very nice, in others a bit frustrating. I think that if MS Dev-Div buys out Xamarin, we'll see where things are really headed here. It will either be a new era of OSS tools from MS, or back to the old "kill it for cross platform in v.Next" ...

I'm hoping that the tooling and integration gets a lot better in *nix, but nod sure how the Mono license (MIT iirc) and this new C# license (Apache) will jive together.

Personally, most of my new dev for the past couple years has been in node.js (which has its' own niceties and quirks).

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#312

Post by jussij »

lugg wrote: post #303
JohnBooty wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think that's totally fair to say. I wouldn't place bets on any strategy that relied on Microsoft not closing the doors again at some point in the future, on future versions of their development stack. Like you said, though, this is better than not having happened.

I don't see why they would. This has been an obvious move for a long time, keeping it closed never really made any sense to me. They gained nothing from .Net being closed except hate and utter avoidance from people like me (vocal early adopters.) MS doesn't really make money off C# or .Net directly, they make money off the windows licenses you need to run the resulting code. Open C#/.Net = stronger, longer lasting co…

> MS doesn't really make money off C# or .Net directly, they make money off the windows licenses you need to run the resulting code.

On this page: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/02/microsoft-updates-visual-st...

There is this quote:

Microsoft also today announced that Visual Studio 2013 has sold over 3.7 million copies since its release less than five months ago. That makes it the fastest-selling release of Visual Studio to date.

Based on those numbers and the fact that Visual Studio prices range from about $1,000.00 for VS Professional up to $13,000.00 for VS Ultimate, I'd say they make quite a bit of money of C#, .Net (and of course C++ as well).

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#313

Post by air »

belorn wrote: post #47
McGlockenshire wrote: post #2

Released under the Apache 2 license. http://roslyn.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest#License.txt

Which is really good. It put a final say in the question about patents.

Unfortunately it doesn't. It's "Copyright (c) Microsoft Open Technologies", a Microsoft subsidiary it set up precisely to avoid licensing their patents when releasing GPL or Apache code.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#314

Post by tracker1 »

bambam12897 wrote: post #165
cwyers wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red Hat, for instance, makes a ton of money off the reverse model, where they let CentOS give away their core offering for free (heck, they're even paying people to work on CentOS now), and they make their money off clients who have money and are willing to exchange it for support and such for otherwise free offerings. There's really no reason Microsoft can't do something similar here (and they seem to be trending in…

You honestly think Microsoft it trying to shift to a RedHat-like business plan? That they'll switch to becoming a support provider? I think what RedHat is doing is nice, but it's really not on the same scale to what Microsoft does; not to mention that they essentially have no monopoly/lockin - b/c anyone can start doing what they do (ie. start providing support for CentOS). The synergy of microsoft services is closel…

More like they're moving to a combination of Adobe's tooling + Amazon's AWS offerings... MS makes a fair amount of money from MSDN licenses, and if their tools can be used to build/deploy service oriented backends that happen to be easy to deploy on their Azure platform, they still make money when the clients are more Android and iOS based.

They're looking longer term in the face of declining Windows/PC sales, and stagnant phone/tablet sales. It makes a lot of sense to improve/expand the platforms that their tools can target. They do have some really nice tooling, and imho Azure is a bit easier to use for a lot of things compared to alternatives.

It's not perfect, but they definitely have a strategy in place with the future in mind.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#315

Post by svas »

SneakerXZ wrote: post #106
sixbrx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the main thing I would be interested in also, but I'm thinking that's one thing that we WILL NOT see. That could seriously undercut the need to buy Windows servers.

The .NET VM would be pretty much useless on other platforms. It is tied to Windows and it would be pretty hard to rewrite. But standard libraries would be different story.

A significant subset of .NET had to exist anyway for Silverlight to run on the Mac.

I'm sure the codebase is factored internally to have some sort of platform abstraction.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#316

Post by EpicEng »

orblivion wrote: post #237
EpicEng wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're a hipster because you seem to think nothing is truly open until it's on git.

From http://roslyn.codeplex.com/ : git clone https://git01.codeplex.com/roslyn Do you mean on git hub ?

Yes, yes I did.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#317

Post by mehrdada »

coldtea wrote: post #286
Delmania wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subtle difference: Apple and IBM have made use of free software such as FreeBSD, CUPS, Webkit, etc. Microsoft here is taking core technology and releasing it as free.

Correction: Webkit wasn't some software Apple made use of. Apple created Webkit as we know it. What they DID use was KHTML, a far more barebones web rendering engine used in KDE, that Apple adopted, and turned into Webkit. Webkit as Apple had it (before Google stepped in) was an order of magnitude more evolved than KHTML.

KHTML was licensed under LGPL. Releasing the code was not a choice, but an obligation.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#318

Post by sgy »

Now with Windows free and many of its work is open-sourced, Microsoft is going to try to make money on services and other software that comes with Windows. It's a risk, but better than the alternative: watching Android completely takes over the planet.

It's not an advertising company like Google. Google makes money when you use the Internet; Microsoft makes money when you pay for its software.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#319

Post by coldtea »

testrun wrote: post #300
coldtea wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is Microsoft we're talking about - they have a track record of profound fuckery. Any examples? Besides "bundling IE with the OS and pressuring some OEM vendors back in the nineties"?

1. Internet Explorer standard compliance : Internet Explorer has introduced an array of proprietary extensions to many of the standards, including HTML, CSS, and the DOM. This has resulted in a number of web pages that appear broken in standards-compliant web browsers and has introduced the need for a "quirks mode" to allow for rendering improper elements meant for Internet Explorer in these other browsers. [ http://…

>* Internet Explorer standard compliance : Internet Explorer has introduced an array of proprietary extensions to many of the standards, including HTML, CSS, and the DOM. This has resulted in a number of web pages that appear broken in standards-compliant web browsers and has introduced the need for a "quirks mode" to allow for rendering improper elements meant for Internet Explorer in these other browsers.*

For one, this wikipedia page is incorrect (shocker, I know). The "quirks" mode has little to do with "proprietary extensions" in IE, and more with stuff like incompatibilities due to MSs early adoption of standard syntax that later changed.

Second, all browser vendors have introduced "proprietary extensions". Heck, Javascript itself was a proprietary Netscape extensions, as were tons of other stuff we take for granted now. Oh, and this AJAX thing? It started as a proprietary IE extension. Not to mention the Canvas and CSS animations (which started as proprietary Safari extensions).

2. Seems legit (if another example of "ancient history", that didn't even matter in the end).

3. The consortium that had those patents seems to include all major players (even Apple, Blackberry, Sony et co). So not really singling out MS in this.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#320

Post by damian2000 »

breischl wrote: post #167
acqq wrote: post #163

Note that the C# compiler being open-sourced now is not the one used in Visual Studio. The open sourced one is called currently the "Roslyn C# compiler." See Locke1689's comments here, especially: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7524722 "the native C# compiler (that's what we call the old C# compiler that everyone's using in VS right now)"

That's true, they open sourced the new-hotness compiler that they're moving to. The Roslyn compiler is still in preview, hence it hasn't had time to make it into Visual Studio. But I believe it'll be in the next version. Really, this seems better than opening up the old compiler that they're moving away from.

Yeah, agreed - I heard a Roslyn dev saying exactly that in a podcast a couple of months back ... http://dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=935
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