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Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

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Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#281

Post by Guvante »

pjc50 wrote: post #138

The politics of this are interesting, and IMO related to the decline of the PC as a platform. Suddenly Microsoft is the outsider crying for "openness" and "freedom" while hammering on the gates of the Google/Apple ecosystem. For Microsoft, it's less bad if everyone switches to an uncontrolled platform than if they switch to a platform locked in by a competitor. The embrace/extend/extinguish logic works the other way…

> The politics of this are interesting, and IMO related to the decline of the PC as a platform.

Why would this signal the death of PC? If anything this is most closely related to the death of Windows Server, since a ton of application development is done via the web.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#283

Post by Someone1234 »

jacquesm wrote: post #266
tlb wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious whether, with the fullness of technological hindsight, you still deplore what they did to Netscape. Microsoft was the first to release a free browser included with the OS. That killed Netscape's business of selling browsers on a CD for $40, and Netscape was understandably upset. It now seems clear that an OS needs a browser included, at least so you can read documentation and download the browser of your…

> I'm curious whether, with the fullness of technological hindsight, you still deplore what they did to Netscape. Absolutely. I dislike tied sales, I dislike having to buy a Microsoft operating system with my hardware just as much as I dislike getting IE (or chrome or any other browser) forcefully rammed down my throat when I buy an operating system. I'm pretty sure you can guess what browser I'm using to type this c…

> Does it?

Yes.

You say you want choice, but if you didn't have a browser how would you download the browser of your choice? Osmosis? Or, more importantly how would your average user download their browser?

Every OS since then (OSS or not) has shipped with a browser and has made it the default for any API rendering that needs to occur (e.g. Ubuntu, Android, OS X, Windows, iOS, Firefox OS, etc).

Netscape's business model would have held the internet back significantly. If Microsoft was forced to provide IE on a CD and sell that CD for $40 then frankly it could have held the internet back at least five years.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#284

Post by curiousDog »

nrb wrote: post #120
FlyingSnake wrote: post #50

This is epic. Peter Thiel was right about creative Monopoly. The new Microsoft under Satya Nadella has totally changed the direction of Microsoft in just a few months. They had one of the best and rock solid development platforms and research division, and loyal customers. The new Azure cloud (Online + On Premise) along with the opening of .Net will change the playing field. I'm sure this is a great new for us develo…

I'd pin more of this on Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman, really. They have been championing this kind of behavior for years within MS.

Not really if you understand how large corporations work. I think Nadella being a former dev and understanding the importance of it has a lot to do with it.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#285

Post by bwy »

[deleted] wrote: post #250
billyhoffman wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What are they going to do, hack in System.IO" System.IO works very well on Linux/Mac right now. It was one of the first things implemented by the Mono team. Having ported numerous .NET applications, all of which do fair heavily file I/O (the most common use case for System.IO), the main sticking point has been code that deals with filenames and paths. As in "/home/billy" vs "c:\Users\Billy". A hour or so of cleaning…

[deleted]

I wouldn't call that an insult, much less a passive-aggressive one. Maybe it's time to get a bit of fresh air; the world's not out to get you.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#286

Post by glibgil »

boynamedsue wrote: post #264
jacquesm wrote: post #77

It's funny how Nadella has moved the needle more for developers in 9 months than Ballmer did in the last decade or so, and all that without running around like a madman too. Pretty good. I'll never switch back to MS for what they've done in the past but it is nice to see them try hard to become a nicer player in the software eco-system. Google and Apple need some other party to keep them sharp, it might as well be MS…

The process to open source .NET would have almost certainly started before Nadella became CEO. There's no way they decided to release the source and have it ready within 9 months.

There is a way. Their source may have been well organized and license problems known already.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#287

Post by Guvante »

buckbova wrote: post #168
jacquesm wrote: post #113

You were beaten to the punch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8595905

It's a different article of course. But I gave you an upvote anyway. Way too many "MS Open Sources .NET . . .. " links right now. And the hanselman blog won't load for me.

To be fair massive interest in this is expected given Hacker News' population.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#288

Post by bad_user »

sz4kerto wrote: post #276
bad_user wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also been pretty unforgiving about things that Microsoft did in the past to crush competing web browsers, competing standards like OpenGL or ODF, Linux or open-source in general. And sorry, but I do not agree with that article by Hanselman. Thing is, I treat companies like I treat people. Legally speaking, isn't that what they want, in the US anyway? So if you violate my trust, it's goodbye until I see serious a…

> I treat companies like I treat people I would say this is a really bad strategy. According to unwritten HN rules, I should now start explaining why I think there are differences between a company and a person, and why they should be treated differently thereof. But I won't. :)

Why? Do you disagree with the concept of voting with your wallet?

How else can you get companies to listen to your needs? And my needs as a developer and a user are simple - I need my privacy, an open web and a healthy open-source ecosystem. And I'll vote with my wallet and I'll bitch against any company that has a problem with that - and I'll also encourage alternatives that cater to my needs.

The world would be a much better place if all people behaved like this IMHO - oh, so are the shareholders a company's top priority? Not my problem.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#289

Post by jacquesm »

tolmasky wrote: post #239
jacquesm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Stacker - Netscape - SCO And many others besides. Companies have reputations just like people do (that's why we call them 'incorporated') and just like you can lose your trust in a person you can lose your trust in a corporation. This is not about Microsoft just doing 'stupid stuff sometimes' it is about institutionalized criminal behavior sanctioned at the highest level of one of the largest software companies in…

Much like countries, it doesn't necessarily make sense to treat companies like people when it comes to reputation. You shouldn't hold a grudge against a country forever, many of the people inside of it may have disagreed with its actions and more importantly the leadership could be completely different now. Similalrly, if most of the employees at Microsoft today are different than in the 90s and the leadership is com…

This is absolutely true but even in the present Microsoft has anything but clean hands:

http://euobserver.com/political/125868

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2466540/software/munich-...

And on and on.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#290

Post by djur »

fsloth wrote: post #152

Hot toes in springwater! I had figured out that since .Net was proprietary I really should ween myself away from the sweet, sweet F# and learn some clojure but it seems Microsoft has stumped on my plans for self improvement. Immutable by default, algebraic datastructures with pattern matching to boot, great concurrency story and now actually open with permissive licence. Mind. Blown.

Wasn't F# already open source? And it runs on Mono.

This does bump F# up quite a bit in my estimation, though; I never loved that Mono was a reimplementation of a proprietary platform.

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