Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

roslyn.codeplex.com

391–400 of 459 posts

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, how could I forget the iPad, the thing is the business model they have for all of their products is unsustainable. The iPad is doing well now, just as the iPhone did initially, but less and less people are buying the iPhone because the Android environment has had time to develop. Even chromebooks out sold mac books [1] in 2013. A lot of companies allow developers to use Linux too. The fact that people w…

Are less and less people buying iPhones, or more and more people buying phones? (Not a rhetorical question, I don't know whose numbers to trust for mobile stuff.) Apple's business is not one that has to own a market to make gobsmacking amounts of money. As such I doubt they see being outsold by Chromebooks as being a serious problem; they've been being outsold in the laptop market forever and are still making yachtlo…

Sales year on year for Apple phones have increased, but at the same time, market share is slinking, since just so much more Android phones are being sold. See: http://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-iphon...

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#392
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has made Darwin open source. That, WebKit, and LLVM are pretty core technologies. A good portion of their technology is open. So, it's not just using free software and not giving back.

Darwin is open source but is there anyone here who has actually used it or got a bootable usable machine from it? I mean, can you even run X on it successfully? I never could (didn't try very hard mind you). The release of Darwin isn't a massive thing I don't think.

There have been several independent distributions of Darwin. The current one is Pure Darwin. http://www.puredarwin.org

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#393
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, ClickOnce should go down as one of the bigger dead-end embarrassments, since they torpedo'd installer projects in VS2012.

Why did they get rid of Installer Projects? We are still on VS2010 and although it isn't a massive issue to use a different installer system, it seems a very odd decision. I mean, you are writing apps for their OS using their tools. Why wouldn't you want to create an installer? Daft!

It's because the installer packages stink. WiX is a far better platform.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#394
post #303

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…

Releasing .NET sources could help Mono development and ultimately lead to .NET world not being locked to Windows (at least on servers, you'd still want Windows for Visual Studio when doing development)

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did they get rid of Installer Projects? We are still on VS2010 and although it isn't a massive issue to use a different installer system, it seems a very odd decision. I mean, you are writing apps for their OS using their tools. Why wouldn't you want to create an installer? Daft!

It's because the installer packages stink. WiX is a far better platform.

I've been out of the Windows deployment ecosystem for ages. What's the benefit of using WiX over nsis?

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#396
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Stu…

I payed $99 for VS2013 Professional, as did many others. Which is probably a key factor in why it is the fastest selling release.

At $100.00 a pop those sales numbers would still indicate VS generated sales revenue of $370.00 million.

My guess is the actual revenue figures are probably in the $1B to $2B (B = billion) range, which isn't too bad for a product that I'm sure Microsoft doesn't consider one of their big money makers and a product line that I'm sure they also subsidise with income from sales of their other products.

I too suspect Microsoft looks at VS as an essential, break even product, but with sales numbers like that I can't believe they aren't also making a nice little profit from VS.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So? Nobody forced them to pick KHTML in the first place.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather see C# across the board and write once run anywhere (eg release a linux distro with .net support built in).

I'm fairly sure Mono is installed by default on Ubuntu. I'm not sure what happens to Windows Forms or WPF code in that case though.

Wrong. It was default for a while until it got finally removed in Ubuntu LTS 12.04

But, you can easily add it back if you want to use a program that uses it (i.e. Gnome Do)

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#399
post #73

The changes in company behavior have been absolutely stunning since Ballmer left. Hopefully these changes signal a more modern, forward looking Microsoft going forward.

These changes have nothing to do with Ballmer's (lack of) presence. They have to do with Scott Guthrie being an absolute badass.

Teams under his lead have been open sourcing things in expanding significance for years. As Scott has been steadily climbing the Microsoft chain of command and with each step of the ladder it seems larger projects got open sourced.

Re: Microsoft Open Sources C# Compiler

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about LLVM?

The raison d'etre for Apple's LLVM-based compiler was avoiding GPL3 restrictions of having to publish source code, it seems. They are frequently laggards in publishing parts of LLVM they care about and think of as competitive advantage (e.g. ARM64[1]), and they seem to not contribute much to parts of LLVM that they don't use themselves[2] (not that I find anything wrong with it, but portraying them as innate altruist…

>In short, Apple publishes free software, generally because they either (1) have to, due to GPL, or (2) feel the gain from the project is bigger than the cost of having to maintain a separate branch, so it makes perfect business sense.

How is that different from any other company? Don't companies release free software when a) they are forced to, or b) they feel they have something to gain?

Post reply on HN