So .NET is "Resource" Sourced... what's next?

z2bass
AH!

Well, the .NET framework has been "Shared" sourced. So what is the next thing to be open sourced? How about Channel9???

To me, that would be REALLY sweet to see the codebase for c9 v4 since it is a clean implementation of ASP.NET code.

DotNetKicks open sourced a while ago... so how about it, c9???

jeffsand
Inch by Inch

We talked about it, dream about it. But right now we're soley focussed on delivering the features. Smiley

Once it is live on all of our communities then we can think about taking that step.

littleguru
<3 Seattle

Let them get to v4 first... Wink

After all the long wait I'm already happy to see v4 (aka EvNet) RTM HTML markup in my browser Big Smile

glebd
Turning coffee into code

Open-sourced? Yes. "Shared-sourced"? I don't think you would want that. God forbid you to write something similar after looking at the "shared" code that is still protected by MS ©.

As to your question on what's next... I expect soon C# developers will start hearing a certain question during their job interviews:

Interviewer: "Have you ever used (seen, stepped into during debugging) the .NET shared source code?"
Developer: "Yes, of course. This helps the development, you know."
Interviewer: "Sorry, we cannot employ you. Your mind is tainted."

AndyC

glebd wrote:

Interviewer: "Have you ever used (seen, stepped into during debugging) the .NET shared source code?"
Developer: "Yes, of course. This helps the development, you know."
Interviewer: "Sorry, we cannot employ you. Your mind is tainted."

That's already far, far more likely with GPL code than it ever will be with the .NET shared source, unless you're planning to go work for Novell on mono.

glebd
Turning coffee into code

AndyC wrote:

glebd wrote:

Interviewer: "Have you ever used (seen, stepped into during debugging) the .NET shared source code?"
Developer: "Yes, of course. This helps the development, you know."
Interviewer: "Sorry, we cannot employ you. Your mind is tainted."

That's already far, far more likely with GPL code than it ever will be with the .NET shared source, unless you're planning to go work for Novell on mono.

I think you're wrong here. First, there is not a lot of GPL-licensed .NET code out there that can taint a developer's mind, and if there is, you can avoid it easily. But that is going to change because the entire .NET runtime will become "contagious" in the sense GPL code is now. Except that you can still use GPL code in GPL projects, whereas you cannot use any of the code you see inside .NET runtime for anything. Oh, and you will be hard-pressed to avoid looking at it — Visual Studio will gladly download it for you and automatically step into it, should you inadventently press "Step Into" key during debugging.

littleguru
<3 Seattle

glebd wrote:

I think you're wrong here. First, there is not a lot of GPL-licensed .NET code out there that can taint a developer's mind, and if there is, you can avoid it easily. But that is going to change because the entire .NET runtime will become "contagious" in the sense GPL code is now. Except that you can still use GPL code in GPL projects, whereas you cannot use any of the code you see inside .NET runtime for anything. Oh, and you will be hard-pressed to avoid looking at it — Visual Studio will gladly download it for you and automatically step into it, should you inadventently press "Step Into" key during debugging.

Let's imagine that the company you are going to work for creates projects for a large customer - the source (C/C++ code in this case) is going to be the property of the customer in the end... and they are going to sell it as closed source (there are plans for that)... and you have seen a lot of GPL source.

You are doomed! soooooooooo doomed my friend Wink

Your statement would make everybody who has ever contributed to a GPL project (and therefore read others GPL code) unable to code for a closed scenario (and there are tons of that) anymore. Poor them/me... no jobs, no money... man I'm so doomed!

Crying

thumbtacks2

In all seriousness, who really cares if anybody has seen the .NET code or not? How else do developers learn? Now if you go and copy the code line by line and incorporate it into your own product, and then ship that, then you do so at your own risk.

AndyC

thumbtacks2 wrote:
In all seriousness, who really cares if anybody has seen the .NET code or not?

If you want to work on mono, it might be an issue. For anyone else it's really not a big deal, especially if you're working as a .NET developer (why would you copy code from the BCL when you can just use the BCL?)

thumbtacks2

AndyC wrote:

thumbtacks2 wrote: In all seriousness, who really cares if anybody has seen the .NET code or not?
If you want to work on mono, it might be an issue. For anyone else it's really not a big deal, especially if you're working as a .NET developer (why would you copy code from the BCL when you can just use the BCL?)

It would be a silly if Mono doesn't hire you because of "seeing the source code". That's their own choice, though, and I can see the legal issues they are trying to avoid.

wkempf

For Mono, it's definitely not silly. They have a huge risk of violating patents that Microsoft very well could defend.

For everyone else, give me a break. You know, MFC, ATL and several other libraries were under very similar licenses, and there's not been one instance of trouble caused by this. Let's stop spreading FUD.

glebd
Turning coffee into code

thumbtacks2 wrote:
It would be a silly if Mono doesn't hire you because of "seeing the source code". That's their own choice, though, and I can see the legal issues they are trying to avoid.

Remember SCO (there was a company named SCO once, and it was even listed)? They suddenly decided that Linux contained code infringing on their ©.

If a code snippet appears in Mono that is similar to .NET code and there are Mono contributors who had seen the .NET code, MS potentially may want to shut down Mono or do something else along the lines.

Now, given SCO current status, they may want to think twice about that, but still the possibility remains. I guess that's why Mono guys are being careful about this.

ScanIAm
On a scale of 1 to 10, people are stupid.

wkempf wrote:
For Mono, it's definitely not silly. They have a huge risk of violating patents that Microsoft very well could defend.

For everyone else, give me a break. You know, MFC, ATL and several other libraries were under very similar licenses, and there's not been one instance of trouble caused by this. Let's stop spreading FUD.

Exactly, and in fact, I'd bet that Miguel has seen the code through reflector before. Remember, MSFT doesn't 'sell' .Net, so there's no market to protect.

wkempf

ScanIAm wrote:

wkempf wrote: For Mono, it's definitely not silly. They have a huge risk of violating patents that Microsoft very well could defend.

For everyone else, give me a break. You know, MFC, ATL and several other libraries were under very similar licenses, and there's not been one instance of trouble caused by this. Let's stop spreading FUD.

Exactly, and in fact, I'd bet that Miguel has seen the code through reflector before. Remember, MSFT doesn't 'sell' .Net, so there's no market to protect.

No, the Mono project has a strict rule about this. They don't permit looking at the source or using Reflector. If you've done either, you're not allowed to contribute to the Mono code base.

http://www.mono-project.com/Contributing

thumbtacks2

ScanIAm wrote:

wkempf wrote: For Mono, it's definitely not silly. They have a huge risk of violating patents that Microsoft very well could defend.

For everyone else, give me a break. You know, MFC, ATL and several other libraries were under very similar licenses, and there's not been one instance of trouble caused by this. Let's stop spreading FUD.
Exactly, and in fact, I'd bet that Miguel has seen the code through reflector before. Remember, MSFT doesn't 'sell' .Net, so there's no market to protect.

Does anybody know how many users actually use anything that the Mono project has created?

wkempf

thumbtacks2 wrote:

ScanIAm wrote:

wkempf wrote: For Mono, it's definitely not silly. They have a huge risk of violating patents that Microsoft very well could defend.

For everyone else, give me a break. You know, MFC, ATL and several other libraries were under very similar licenses, and there's not been one instance of trouble caused by this. Let's stop spreading FUD.
Exactly, and in fact, I'd bet that Miguel has seen the code through reflector before. Remember, MSFT doesn't 'sell' .Net, so there's no market to protect.
Does anybody know how many users actually use anything that the Mono project has created?

A lot. Despite a lot of the grumbling about Mono in the Linux world, there are a lot of applications implemented using it that are included in most distributions and used by a large number of Linux users. There's also a lot of ASP.NET applications running under Linux. Then there's projects like Grasshopper that rely on it.

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

wkempf wrote:
A lot. Despite a lot of the grumbling about Mono in the Linux world, there are a lot of applications implemented using it that are included in most distributions and used by a large number of Linux users. There's also a lot of ASP.NET applications running under Linux. Then there's projects like Grasshopper that rely on it.

And pretty much the only competitor to WDS! beagle is a fine C# application Smiley

TimP

thumbtacks2 wrote:

ScanIAm wrote:

wkempf wrote: For Mono, it's definitely not silly. They have a huge risk of violating patents that Microsoft very well could defend.

For everyone else, give me a break. You know, MFC, ATL and several other libraries were under very similar licenses, and there's not been one instance of trouble caused by this. Let's stop spreading FUD.
Exactly, and in fact, I'd bet that Miguel has seen the code through reflector before. Remember, MSFT doesn't 'sell' .Net, so there's no market to protect.
Does anybody know how many users actually use anything that the Mono project has created?

I know some Linux-exclusive places that actually do new development in ASP.NET soley to run on xsp. They proxy requests through existing Apache infrastructure*. Mono isn't just a temporary solution for people migrating existing Windows applications to Linux.

(* to be honest, I don't know why they don't use mod_mono since it would cut out having to run the xsp server in addition to Apache, but I don't run the place. Smiley

)

Rossj

PaoloM wrote:

And pretty much the only competitor to WDS! beagle is a fine C# application

Update: My memory sucks, Dashboard, not Beagle. Ah well ... anyway this Dashboard thing ...

Beagle *used to be*, (at least from memory) a real-time contextual search based on what you are currently doing - in the vein of Autonomy's Kaijin (spelling) from the late 90s. You need to check the spelling because my memory is terrible from that far back. In theory if you typed Paolo the Beagle window would show recent IM conversations, emails, contact details etc for that person until you typed another word that it recognised. If my rather poor memory is even vaguely right the devs (Nat et al) may even have been involved in the first port of Lucene from Java...

There were a couple of other products that did the same thing, but I remember the Autonomy one because I remember thinking how broken it was (and conceptually) when one of my colleagues tried it out.

ScanIAm
On a scale of 1 to 10, people are stupid.

wkempf wrote:

ScanIAm wrote:

wkempf wrote: For Mono, it's definitely not silly. They have a huge risk of violating patents that Microsoft very well could defend.

For everyone else, give me a break. You know, MFC, ATL and several other libraries were under very similar licenses, and there's not been one instance of trouble caused by this. Let's stop spreading FUD.

Exactly, and in fact, I'd bet that Miguel has seen the code through reflector before. Remember, MSFT doesn't 'sell' .Net, so there's no market to protect.

No, the Mono project has a strict rule about this. They don't permit looking at the source or using Reflector. If you've done either, you're not allowed to contribute to the Mono code base.

http://www.mono-project.com/Contributing

That appears to be their rule, but I don't see any justification for it.

Maybe what they need is an impartial 3rd party that can look at both the original and mono code but cannot directly contribute to mono :0

I'm sure there were some lawyers involved in this decision, but if you limit your developer pool to people who know .Net and haven't ever felt the desire to take a look at how it works, then you might not have the best developers to choose from Sad

wkempf

ScanIAm wrote:
That appears to be their rule, but I don't see any justification for it.

Maybe what they need is an impartial 3rd party that can look at both the original and mono code but cannot directly contribute to mono :0

I'm sure there were some lawyers involved in this decision, but if you limit your developer pool to people who know .Net and haven't ever felt the desire to take a look at how it works, then you might not have the best developers to choose from

I can't agree. You need a developer skilled at creating languages/compilers/libraries, and that's all. From there you implement the stuff based on the standard. (Yes, Mono is also trying to replicate non-standardized stacks as well, but if you've done the rest, you've got the skills to do this.) People with the chops to write a compiler are, generally, some of the best developers you can find. Besides, the Mono devs have proven over and over that they are top notch.

ScanIAm
On a scale of 1 to 10, people are stupid.

wkempf wrote:

ScanIAm wrote: That appears to be their rule, but I don't see any justification for it.

Maybe what they need is an impartial 3rd party that can look at both the original and mono code but cannot directly contribute to mono :0

I'm sure there were some lawyers involved in this decision, but if you limit your developer pool to people who know .Net and haven't ever felt the desire to take a look at how it works, then you might not have the best developers to choose from

I can't agree. You need a developer skilled at creating languages/compilers/libraries, and that's all. From there you implement the stuff based on the standard. (Yes, Mono is also trying to replicate non-standardized stacks as well, but if you've done the rest, you've got the skills to do this.) People with the chops to write a compiler are, generally, some of the best developers you can find. Besides, the Mono devs have proven over and over that they are top notch.

I didn't mean to imply that their devs would suck, and if they have to implement the entire framework (or as much as they can) from documentation alone, then they have to be good. It just seems that from a pool of 100% of possible devs, they've cut out some of them simply because those devs were curious about the MSFT version.

I've never seen the .NET docs before (or is it all reverse engineering), but I've yet to find a set of documentation that completely describes a topic and MSFT is no better at documentation than any other group. So the ambiguities couldn't be resolved without reverse engineering or viewing the code.

glebd
Turning coffee into code

ScanIAm wrote:

I'm sure there were some lawyers involved in this decision, but if you limit your developer pool to people who know .Net and haven't ever felt the desire to take a look at how it works, then you might not have the best developers to choose from

Well, you surely would not get those who like to copy-paste their code.

Seriously, are you sure .NET source code is all rosy? I bet they had to clean it up quite a bit before releasing for everyone to see, if the previously leaked Windows 2000 code is any indication (I haven't seen it, just read this review).

From the initial announcement, a snippet of commented .NET source:

...
finally {
    // restore culture
    RestoreCultures(currentThread, prevCulture, prevUICulture);
}
...

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So .NET is &quot;Resource&quot; Sourced... what's next?