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Great stuff. I've worked professionally in the .NET development ecosystem for almost a decade and I've never been so enthusiastic about the direction that Micro

Great stuff. I've worked professionally in the .NET development ecosystem for almost a decade and I've never been so enthusiastic about the direction that Microsoft is taking. Their embracing of open source practices is very positive and will help to retain and maybe even attract developers. You just don't have to worry about licensing any more this way. You can actually sit an MCP exam in MS product licensing, it's that complicated. This announcement is probably timed to coincide with NDC. There were lots of similar open source announcements at a previous MS conference I was at. Although it was a bit weird due to the time difference on the embargo.

tracker1 11y ago
MS is betting that their services division(s) will be the future of the company... from Azure to Office 365, XBox services, etc. It probably is the safest bet given the monumental shift in computer/online usage away from typical desktops to phones/tablets and their middling encroachments into that space. MS is being open because it makes sense to, and it's the only way to maintain mindshare in the near future. Azure's a decent enough offering, but AWS and GCE are right there as well, each with advantages over the others. I actually like windows (mostly), but need it far less, as I can do what I like with OSX and Linux and do daily. As a developer/user it's nice to see the changes.
mikekchar 11y ago
I might be wrong, but I think the attitude change really started with .NET. I'm not sure that many people remember the "shared source" version of .NET. I worked at Corel, who was contracted to work on it, at the time. Although I didn't work on the project itself, I interacted with quite a few people who did. I'm not going to pretend that MS "got it" at the time. "Share Source" was an insult to everyone. However, internally you could see light bulbs going off in people's heads. People who worked on the shared source version were proud of what they were doing and were really eager to have people look at it. The fact that "shared source" essentially crippled it to the point that it would be useless to everyone was surely a thorn in those people's sides. It (and every other shared source project) died in obscurity (thankfully). I often wonder if this was one of the seeds that eventually sprouted inside MS to make them start to take open source seriously. I even wonder if one day we will see them embrace software freedom. Well... I can dream can't I ;-)

tracker1 11y ago

MS is betting that their services division(s) will be the future of the company... from Azure to Office 365, XBox services, etc. It probably is the safest bet given the monumental shift in computer/online usage away from typical desktops to phones/tablets and their middling encroachments into that space. MS is being open because it makes sense to, and it's the only way to maintain mindshare in the near future. Azure's a decent enough offering, but AWS and GCE are right there as well, each with advantages over the others. I actually like windows (mostly), but need it far less, as I can do what I like with OSX and Linux and do daily. As a developer/user it's nice to see the changes.

mikekchar 11y ago

I might be wrong, but I think the attitude change really started with .NET. I'm not sure that many people remember the "shared source" version of .NET. I worked at Corel, who was contracted to work on it, at the time. Although I didn't work on the project itself, I interacted with quite a few people who did. I'm not going to pretend that MS "got it" at the time. "Share Source" was an insult to everyone. However, internally you could see light bulbs going off in people's heads. People who worked on the shared source version were proud of what they were doing and were really eager to have people look at it. The fact that "shared source" essentially crippled it to the point that it would be useless to everyone was surely a thorn in those people's sides. It (and every other shared source project) died in obscurity (thankfully). I often wonder if this was one of the seeds that eventually sprouted inside MS to make them start to take open source seriously. I even wonder if one day we will see them embrace software freedom. Well... I can dream can't I ;-)