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You make some great points about the difficulties in running a cross-platform .NET project as open source. However, I think the cross-platform difficulties are

You make some great points about the difficulties in running a cross-platform .NET project as open source. However, I think the cross-platform difficulties are only a small part. Open-source is very new to many Microsoft developers. Just getting participation in .NET projects that are Windows only is difficult (but not impossible). Many Microsoft developers have had years of "training" that open-source == buggy and has support issues just like many non-MS developers have been "taught" that .NET is a legal trap so don't touch it. I think the perception has been changing in recent years and open-source .NET is now well accepted in some circles. As the trend grows I think you'll start to see better cross-platform tools and support for your package management and testing problems. Who knows, JavaScript might just become so dominant that open-source .NET never reaches its full potential.

kermitthehermit 15y ago
The problem is that some people still remember some of the stories about how Microsoft blackmailed some hardware vendors to stop shipping devices with Linux and how they sued companies which sell Android based devices. Because of that reason, it's not that hard to imagine a scenario where Microsoft got "stabby" and wanted a piece of someone's cake. node.js / python / php / ruby (with all of their frameworks) are far better choices than .net. At least they're backed by a lot of people and they all seem to be doing fine. They're pretty much the same across distributions / OSes / architectures from the point of view of development and of the delpoyment (to some extent). I played with the nancy framework when I was considering an alternative to python for a small web service which required high rps / server resources. Needless to say, I decided to stick to python due to the lack of instructions for compiling on Linux and deploying on mono.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  > remember some of the stories about how Microsoft blackmailed some hardware vendors to stop shipping devices with Linux and how they sued companies which sell Android based devices. Sadly, this is not limited to the past. Microsoft is using patent extortion to get a couple bucks for every Android device sold.
bvanderveen 15y ago
You're right, there are certainly cultural barriers to overcome as well, although I just focused on tooling problems in this article. I agree with your statement about JavaScript. Microsoft was wise to commit resources to making Windows a first-class development environment for Node. There are many compelling reasons for .NET developers to move to that platform.

kermitthehermit 15y ago

The problem is that some people still remember some of the stories about how Microsoft blackmailed some hardware vendors to stop shipping devices with Linux and how they sued companies which sell Android based devices. Because of that reason, it's not that hard to imagine a scenario where Microsoft got "stabby" and wanted a piece of someone's cake. node.js / python / php / ruby (with all of their frameworks) are far better choices than .net. At least they're backed by a lot of people and they all seem to be doing fine. They're pretty much the same across distributions / OSes / architectures from the point of view of development and of the delpoyment (to some extent). I played with the nancy framework when I was considering an alternative to python for a small web service which required high rps / server resources. Needless to say, I decided to stick to python due to the lack of instructions for compiling on Linux and deploying on mono.

rbanffy 15y ago
> remember some of the stories about how Microsoft blackmailed some hardware vendors to stop shipping devices with Linux and how they sued companies which sell Android based devices. Sadly, this is not limited to the past. Microsoft is using patent extortion to get a couple bucks for every Android device sold.

bvanderveen 15y ago

You're right, there are certainly cultural barriers to overcome as well, although I just focused on tooling problems in this article. I agree with your statement about JavaScript. Microsoft was wise to commit resources to making Windows a first-class development environment for Node. There are many compelling reasons for .NET developers to move to that platform.