5 ms·

Yikes, this is worrying, especially given the large amount of goodwill Microsoft has tried to garner with the open source community.

oaiey 5y ago
I think the details have to be read there carefully. The foundation has different goals (legal ownership of .NET independent of Microsoft) than most its members (as outlined in the article). It is a failure in the foundation setup. When you want to foster a community, you have to focus on the community. Not (only) be the legal guardianship of some (important) stuff. And all of that I say as a .NET fanboy.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  The biggest problem is that most .NET shops never moved away from giving tier 1 clearance to Microsoft, while making it almost impossible to use anything else from legal point of view.
  - oaiey 5y ago
    Completely agree.
rvz 5y ago
I think I lost count of how many warnings were given about Microsoft suspiciously getting too involved in open source in general which at this point, issues like this are unsurprising.
Rapzid 5y ago
There are people at Microsoft that "get" FOSS. But there are also people calling shots that simply don't and continually make cringe decisions that poorly balance business interests with their FOSS community. The identity server debacle is great case study.
- dustinmoris 5y ago
  > There are people at Microsoft that "get" FOSS Disagree. There are people at Microsoft that "get" how important it is to look FOSS friendly in order to stay relevant in the developer community and continue to breed C# developers who will deploy to Azure. They don't get FOSS at all though. They want to control it to their advantage and that's about the extent of which Microsoft is interested in FOSS.
- ChicagoDave 5y ago
  The Identity Server open source project with its maintainers going commercial is a truly sad and worrying aspect of Microsoft related open source efforts. This is not the way things are supposed to go.
  - oaiey 5y ago
    IdentityServer decision (at least publicly) was a decision of the two maintainers and I think Microsoft/community was pretty shocked about it. The Foundation failed here in its oversight role and also sustainability wishes from the maintainer perspective. The two maintainers are just overloaded with the project and they had to start earning money with it because no one else was helping. Which again is a community problem which the .NET Foundation fails to address.
    - ChicagoDave 5y ago
      I won't speak for the maintainers, buy I believe there was some falling out between the maintainers and Microsoft. As if there were financial expectations that were pulled or reduced or unsatisfactory. No matter. IS4 is a brilliant open source project and should have been one of the highlights of the .NET Foundation and Microsoft's relationship with the OSS community. It's very disappointing that it's not.
  - phillipcarter 5y ago
    I think it's phenomenal that a .NET OSS project was so useful to the world that there was a viable path to commercialization. The .NET Foundation should not exist to force maintainers from monetizing their work.
na85 5y ago
Those of us who are cynics saw things of this nature coming a mile away. I'm no graybeard but I'm still old enough to remember Microsoft of the 1990s and early 2000s. Being a sort of corporate misanthrope seems baked in to Microsoft's DNA, at least from my outsider's perspective. The brief and now-concluding era of tech optimism that was born of "Don't Be Evil" has shown us that corporations gonna do what corporations gonna do. Never trust Microsoft. You might know Microsoft employees but by and large Microsoft is not your friend.
- kenjackson 5y ago
  I'd go further. No institution is your friend. Their mission might be aligned with yours. In which case, great! If it's not, then be cautious. Your job as an individual is find alignment. An individual, or even a small group, isn't likely to turn a large institution. But you can find those that have aligned missions.
- whoisthemachine 5y ago
  I agree. I had a bad feeling when .Net core was released and billed as Microsoft "embracing" open source. I've been hoping the typical extinguish would not follow, but it seems Microsoft hasn't yet learned the value in nurturing a truly independent, open source community.
amysox 5y ago
Micro$oft is still Micro$oft. The tiger can't change its stripes that easily. Put not your faith in the Beast of Redmond.
- hoffs 5y ago
  Great and useful comment
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Unfortunately Facebook, Apple or Google names aren't as well suited to use dollar signs on the names.

oaiey 5y ago

I think the details have to be read there carefully. The foundation has different goals (legal ownership of .NET independent of Microsoft) than most its members (as outlined in the article). It is a failure in the foundation setup. When you want to foster a community, you have to focus on the community. Not (only) be the legal guardianship of some (important) stuff. And all of that I say as a .NET fanboy.

pjmlp 5y ago
The biggest problem is that most .NET shops never moved away from giving tier 1 clearance to Microsoft, while making it almost impossible to use anything else from legal point of view.
- oaiey 5y ago
  Completely agree.

rvz 5y ago

I think I lost count of how many warnings were given about Microsoft suspiciously getting too involved in open source in general which at this point, issues like this are unsurprising.

Rapzid 5y ago

There are people at Microsoft that "get" FOSS. But there are also people calling shots that simply don't and continually make cringe decisions that poorly balance business interests with their FOSS community. The identity server debacle is great case study.

dustinmoris 5y ago
> There are people at Microsoft that "get" FOSS Disagree. There are people at Microsoft that "get" how important it is to look FOSS friendly in order to stay relevant in the developer community and continue to breed C# developers who will deploy to Azure. They don't get FOSS at all though. They want to control it to their advantage and that's about the extent of which Microsoft is interested in FOSS.
ChicagoDave 5y ago
The Identity Server open source project with its maintainers going commercial is a truly sad and worrying aspect of Microsoft related open source efforts. This is not the way things are supposed to go.
- oaiey 5y ago
  IdentityServer decision (at least publicly) was a decision of the two maintainers and I think Microsoft/community was pretty shocked about it. The Foundation failed here in its oversight role and also sustainability wishes from the maintainer perspective. The two maintainers are just overloaded with the project and they had to start earning money with it because no one else was helping. Which again is a community problem which the .NET Foundation fails to address.
  - ChicagoDave 5y ago
    I won't speak for the maintainers, buy I believe there was some falling out between the maintainers and Microsoft. As if there were financial expectations that were pulled or reduced or unsatisfactory. No matter. IS4 is a brilliant open source project and should have been one of the highlights of the .NET Foundation and Microsoft's relationship with the OSS community. It's very disappointing that it's not.
- phillipcarter 5y ago
  I think it's phenomenal that a .NET OSS project was so useful to the world that there was a viable path to commercialization. The .NET Foundation should not exist to force maintainers from monetizing their work.

na85 5y ago

Those of us who are cynics saw things of this nature coming a mile away. I'm no graybeard but I'm still old enough to remember Microsoft of the 1990s and early 2000s. Being a sort of corporate misanthrope seems baked in to Microsoft's DNA, at least from my outsider's perspective. The brief and now-concluding era of tech optimism that was born of "Don't Be Evil" has shown us that corporations gonna do what corporations gonna do. Never trust Microsoft. You might know Microsoft employees but by and large Microsoft is not your friend.

kenjackson 5y ago
I'd go further. No institution is your friend. Their mission might be aligned with yours. In which case, great! If it's not, then be cautious. Your job as an individual is find alignment. An individual, or even a small group, isn't likely to turn a large institution. But you can find those that have aligned missions.
whoisthemachine 5y ago
I agree. I had a bad feeling when .Net core was released and billed as Microsoft "embracing" open source. I've been hoping the typical extinguish would not follow, but it seems Microsoft hasn't yet learned the value in nurturing a truly independent, open source community.

amysox 5y ago

Micro$oft is still Micro$oft. The tiger can't change its stripes that easily. Put not your faith in the Beast of Redmond.

hoffs 5y ago
Great and useful comment
pjmlp 5y ago
Unfortunately Facebook, Apple or Google names aren't as well suited to use dollar signs on the names.