34 ms·

Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

• bosky101 12y ago
  '...show me the code.'
  • numo16 12y ago
    [0]: https://github.com/dotnet https://github.com/dotnet [1]: http://microsoft.github.io/ http://microsoft.github.io/
• datashovel 12y ago
  Congratulations Microsoft. Welcome to 2014! :) Although I will say, since it took so long I would still expect the community to be somewhat skeptical / cynical, and / or slow to adopt / buy in.
• jbverschoor 12y ago
  But it was already opensource more than 10 years ago. I remember compiling the ms .NET runtime on FreeBSD.
• _random_ 12y ago
  2015 is going to be a year of Microsoft.
  • iratedev 12y ago
    Get in line. We're still waiting on (year+1) being the year of the Linux Desktop.
  • imdsm 12y ago
    We shall see. There is lots going on, both from Microsoft and from the rest of the OS community. It's definitely going to be interesting.
  • MrZongle2 12y ago
    It may be a bit premature to say that, though 2014 looks to be the year that I started liking Microsoft again.
  • shmerl 12y ago
    I doubt. It should be a year of Linux desktop, haha. Wayland with drivers from Nvidia, KDE 5 and Mozilla Shumway are supposed to be coming. And also Daala video codec and Steam Machines / SteamOS. Quite a number of breakthrough developments for 2015.
• _random_ 12y ago
  2015 is going to be a year of Microsoft.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• eyeareque 12y ago
  If you would have shown me this headline 15 years ago I would have thought it was an onion article. Who would have thought they would have come this far?
  • click170 12y ago
    I'm not so sure, I kind of feel like this is them following Embrace Extend Extinguish, except they realized they moved to step 3 too soon so they're going back to step 2 or 1. I do not have faith that they won't try step 3 again later.
    • jacquesm 12y ago
      In a nutshell, that's my problem. Once bitten twice shy. Even so I'm happy that they are moving in this direction, let's hope they do it some more.
    • fapjacks 12y ago
      Absolutely. There is zero regard for open source from Microsoft here. At the very least they must be trying to return to the "developers, developers, developers" days. With Bill Gates punching the clock, it's really anybody's guess what the real motivation is here, but it sure as hell isn't all the things we know and love about open source.
      • SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
        > Absolutely. There is zero regard for open source from Microsoft here. What would it take for you to say "gosh, now Microsoft has regard for open source!" ? If the answer is "nothing, I'd never say that ever" then you don't have an opinion, you have a fixed religious belief. And how does your threshold for Microsoft differ from the same for Apple. Google, Facebook et al?
        • fapjacks 12y ago
          When its history shows otherwise.
• mnkypete 12y ago
  This is really a great move. C# is an awesome language and deserves to have a future on Mac & Linux. Microsoft is changing for sure.
• archagon 12y ago
  Does this mean that Mono will no longer be necessary for cross-platform C# use?
  • methyl 12y ago
    Only if it's easy enough to port, and I doubt it would be. Although Mono will definitely gain from the original source code.
    • archagon 12y ago
      It does say that they are "expanding .NET to run on the Linux and Mac OS platforms".
      • mindstab 12y ago
        "To further support cross-platform mobile development with .NET, as part of their strategic partnership, Microsoft and Xamarin..." I would be pretty shocked if MS just suddenly dropped their won linux/mac implementation. Xamarin and the mono team have been working on this for a very long time. MS is just bringing them further into the "legit" fold
  • jxf 12y ago
    Open-sourcing .NET doesn't magically make it work on other platforms (a not-insignificant chunk is Win32-specific, for example). But it certainly makes the Mono team's job easier.
    • viraptor 12y ago
      They say open source, but not which license they're going to use. It may not be possible to integrate with anything in practice, or as free as developers would like it to be.
      • jxf 12y ago
        It would pretty dumb of them to take this step and then pick a license which wasn't permissive enough to make it happen. Plus, given that they mention they're working with the Mono team on this, I'm sure they're going to get good advice.
• rjsamson 12y ago
  Wow - I have to say I'm impressed. I wonder how extensive the cross platform support is, and what sort of work has gone into targeting iOS? What does this mean for Xamarin and Mono?
  • cwyers 12y ago
    Miguel de Icaza's post: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2014/Nov-12.html http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2014/Nov-12.html
• cwyers 12y ago
  "To further support cross-platform mobile development with .NET, as part of their strategic partnership, Microsoft and Xamarin announced a new streamlined experience for installing Xamarin from Visual Studio, as well as announced the addition of Visual Studio support to its free offering Xamarin Starter Edition — available later in the year." Well that should make a lot of people around here happy.
  • atwebb 12y ago
    Nope, now I don't have an easy thing to complain about in Xamarin threads. Joking aside, there are a lot of surprises coming out of MS, this is all quite nice.
• simonmales 12y ago
  No mention of which license they are using?
  • yulaow 12y ago
    I can't find anything but if I remember well almost all other open source project by microsoft are under apache2
    • simonmales 12y ago
      Here they mention MIT License. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2014/11/12/opening-up-visual-studio-and-net-to-every-developer-any-application-net-server-core-open-source-and-cross-platform-visual-studio-community-2013-and-preview-of-visual-studio-2015-and-net-2015.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2014/11/12/opening...
    • robert_nsu 12y ago
      Read this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/11/12/announcing-net-2015-preview-a-new-era-for-net.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/11/12/announcing...
  • jtgeibel 12y ago
    I think that it is an MIT license, if I've found the correct project on http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/netcore5 http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/netcore5
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • jobu 12y ago
    .NET Framework 4.6 and its Reference Source source is being relicensed under the MIT license, so Mono (and you!) can use the source code to the .NET Framework. Link: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingNET2015NETasOpenSourceNETonMacandLinuxandVisualStudioCommunity.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingNET2015NETasOpenSour...
  • externalmodem 12y ago
• buf 12y ago
  Excellent job, Microsoft.
• Beltiras 12y ago
  http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-community-2013-vs http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-com... returns a 404.
  • Someone1234 12y ago
    Try this: http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-community-vs http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-com...
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    • MrBra 12y ago
      Hardware requirements: 20 GB of available hard disk space Since we are here, could someone please explain me how is it that it takes so much space?
• gjvc 12y ago
  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2014/11/12/opening-up-visual-studio-and-net-to-every-developer-any-application-net-server-core-open-source-and-cross-platform-visual-studio-community-2013-and-preview-of-visual-studio-2015-and-net-2015.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2014/11/12/opening... True to form, the links to github are broken.
• radioact1ve 12y ago
  Faith in C# restored. Amazing.
• venomsnake 12y ago
  I welcome it. And still think it is 10 years too late. 2.0 was a blast and provided higher quality of life and speed of contemporary JAVA. If they had made it multiplatform back then the world would have been different.
  • wvenable 12y ago
    They probably didn't have the resources back then to make it multiplatform. It would be a distraction from providing the core features of the platform. Now that the platform is mature, it's a good time to do it.
    • venomsnake 12y ago
      You mean they could release Rotor under crap licence? But could not make .NET multiplatform? Doubt it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Common_Language_Infrastructure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Common_Language_I... This was the CLI
• programminggeek 12y ago
  This makes a lot of sense for Microsoft. It doesn't in any way cheapen or lessen the .NET business at all, if anything more things will be built on .NET which will lead to higher sales of things like Azure, which for a lot of non .NET devs has almost 0 mindshare. I've never heard a Ruby or PHP developer list Azure as a potential deploy target. That is a real problem for Microsoft, even though Azure can do a lot of the same things AWS or Google's cloud does. Smart move Microsoft.
• sauere 12y ago
  Link is dead for me. Google Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://news.microsoft.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-takes-net-open-source-and-cross-platform-adds-new-development-capabilities-with-visual-studio-2015-net-2015-and-visual-studio-online/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
• skykooler 12y ago
  What does this mean for ReactOS?
  • eropple 12y ago
    I don't think it moves the needle off of "irrelevant".
  • mindstab 12y ago
    nothing? they are implementing windows, not c#
  • gagege 12y ago
    ReactOS seems mostly meant for supporting old Windows applications (a very noble effort). So... nothing?
• dkopi 12y ago
  Together with the Visual Studio Community announcement https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8595855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8595855, this is great news. I've always missed the power of visual studio when programming for open source platforms. This can change things a lot.
  • Someone1234 12y ago
    There's no indication from that that you'll see a Linux or OS X port of Visual Studio. They might, but they haven't said that. This Community Edition is extremely similar to the Express Edition, except with some limitations removed (e.g. extensions enabled) and some new limitations added (5x team members max, which the Express Edition doesn't have: no limit). The Express Edition can be used to produce and publish commerical software. It says so right on their home page [0]. [0] http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-express-vs.aspx http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-exp...
    • dkopi 12y ago
      Still great news, even without a port of VS to OSX or linux. Personally I'm perfectly fine with using a windows PC as my development station, as long as I can create cross platform .NET code. Extensions enabled on the community edition is great news for people who can integrate awesome tools like resharper
• danabramov 12y ago
  I know it's silly but I'm tearing up. I grew up with .NET but neglected it for years because of moving to OS X, iOS and web dev. I played for some time with Xamarin and I'm so happy this is where MS is going. <3 Scott & Miguel, I'm sure they both had a lot to do with it.
  • nailer 12y ago
    Is this Microsoft's runtime or Miguel's? I can't work out whether: - he's made it (if Mono is everywhere and now blessed by Microsoft) - he's ruined (if Microsoft's original Windows-only .net runtime is now everywhere, and there's no need for Mono) EDIT: apparently it's both - https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/532558786486370304 https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/532558786486370304
    • jon-wood 12y ago
      I think Xamarian made a very good move in getting into cross platform toolkits, rather than just relying on support contracts for Mono. At this point I think they're in a position where Microsoft Open Sourcing the .Net runtime isn't going to hurt them too badly.
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    • joshrivers 12y ago
      What I've overheard on some podcast discussions is that they are taking the multiplatform Silverlight runtime, and have enhanced it to be a headless server-type runtime instead of browser-plugin-UI-focused. It doesn't include all of the windows-only features of the CLR and BCL, but has all you need for ASP.NET vNEXT.
    • yes_or_gnome 12y ago
      I would expect that Xamarin's role with Mono is analogous to 37signals\Basecamp is to Ruby on Rails. Neither organization makes money developing Mono nor RoR. They make their money supporting and consulting organizations that chose to use the software that they are developing.
• Someone1234 12y ago
  It will be interesting to see how this will work in practice. C# will port over just fine. But the .Net libraries? System.Windows has little to nothing in it, and right now using things like System.IO.* on Linux and Mac is just asking for trouble. What are they going to do, hack in System.IO.* Linux support after the fact? Or just add Linux.IO.* which is even more of a hack. In either case you're going to get very messy very fast. The .Net libraries absolutely could have been designed with cross platform in mind, for example if they put the IO libraries in System.Windows.* and several of the other Windows-specific APIs. As it stands the .Net framework/libraries are very Windows locked. So much so you'd almost have to scrap them and start over to make it more platform agnostic.
  • shadowmint 12y ago
    To be fair thats pretty much exactly what xamarin have done for ios, android and mac.
    • bigdubs 12y ago
      Yep, and check out System.Console for some horrors in the mono runtime.
      • rikkus 12y ago
        System.Console isn't something that most apps rely on. It's handy for printing something out in a tiny one-file test app, but generally not relied upon for bigger apps.
        • JetSpiegel 12y ago
          Are you saying core .NET libraries are worthless? Because in that case what's the point? Why not just use Java.
          • eropple 12y ago
            I'm sorry, but I have literally no idea how this post follows from the one you replied to?
• agarden 12y ago
  According to the announcement on visualstudio.com about the Community Edition, it isn't just for students and open source developers. Basically, only enterprises or companies with more than five developers need to pay.
• alediaferia 12y ago
  This is a huge amount of tech resource. Don't know if it will actually bring to something working on the other platforms, but for sure it will help projects like Mono which deserved a little help.
• WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  The key points seem to be: "Available Wednesday, Visual Studio Community 2013 is a free, fully featured edition of Visual Studio including full extensibility." So, it sounds like this will replace the Express edition and let you install extensions like you can in the Pro version. "Visual Studio 2015 and .NET 2015: build for any device - Built from the ground up with support for iOS, Android and Windows, Visual Studio 2015 Preview makes it easier for developers to build applications and services for any device, on any platform." It almost sounds like you're going to be able to run VS2015 on different platforms, but I doubt it. Maybe you'll run the web version of VS2015 to develop from Mac/Linux? "To further support cross-platform mobile development with .NET, as part of their strategic partnership, Microsoft and Xamarin announced a new streamlined experience for installing Xamarin from Visual Studio, as well as announced the addition of Visual Studio support to its free offering Xamarin Starter Edition — available later in the year. " This is very interesting - .NET is going fully cross platform but they haven't bought Xamarin...are they planning on competing while keeping their frenemies close or something else?
  • weavie 12y ago
    The iOS and Android part don't make sense to me. Surely you won't be running VS on your iPad? So are they saying it has support for compiling to iOS and Android? Wouldn't they need to mention Xamarin in that sentence for it to make sense?
    • wernercd 12y ago
      I doubt the idea (at this point) is to "RUN" Visual Studio on iPad/Android... My money is on the App Creation naively in VS 2015 - via Xamarin or similar plugins - instead of having to rely on tools like Eclipse or IdeaU. I think I'd lose my mind if I could develop apps in Visual Studio and C# instead of having to use Java and pay $1000/year for Xamarin.
      • weavie 12y ago
        It would destroy Xamarin if they made it free to develop C# for iOS/Android.
• f055 12y ago
  Wow, writing in C# for Mac, that's almost like heaven.
  • migueldeicaza 12y ago
    You can already do this today. Miguel
    • megaman821 12y ago
      What do you use for GUI apps? GTK or native Core.Graphics libraries?
      • gagege 12y ago
        I bet you a million dollars he uses Xamarin.Forms ;)
        • sandyarmstrong 12y ago
          Xamarin.Forms is not supported on Mac.
          • gagege 12y ago
            Nor Windows, nor Linux. I know that. The OP didn't specify a platform.
            • sandyarmstrong 12y ago
              Still, I should take that million dollars and hold it in escrow for you two.
      • sandyarmstrong 12y ago
        Xamarin.Mac is all about native Cocoa app development in C#.
    • deleted 12y ago
• codegeek 12y ago
  Loving this. Recently started working on a project with my brother who loves MS .NET stack and I have no experience in it. I was really skeptic due to the reputation MS has of being closed source and license heavy. I could not have chosen a better time hopefully!!
• vastinfest 12y ago
  Someone somewhere is spinning at mach 1 in his grave..
• talltofu 12y ago
  What happens to Xamarin business model now?
  • amalag 12y ago
    It will improve because of proper support for dot net in IOS and Android. They will evolve but I think they are well positioned.
  • migueldeicaza 12y ago
    It improves it. We now get all these bug fixes for all of our products across Android, Mac, iOS, PlayStation, Xbox and every other embedded system we support. Some details: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2014/Nov-12.html http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2014/Nov-12.html
    • pdappollonio 12y ago
      Let's hope that lowers the costs of Xamarin. It's a great product, but even Microsoft realizes that, in order to achieve wider adoption, you need something close to the freemium model, like Visual Studio.
    • adolfojp 12y ago
      This is your fault. Thank you.
    • Xdes 12y ago
      I like it how .NET Core has a more permissive license (MIT) than Mono (LGPL).
  • migueldeicaza 12y ago
    It improves it. We now get all these bug fixes for all of our products across Android, Mac, iOS, PlayStation, Xbox and every other embedded system we support. Some details: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2014/Nov-12.html http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2014/Nov-12.html
• bmurphy1976 12y ago
  I just want to add my $.02. It's about fucking time. They should have done this 15 years ago.
  • Todd 12y ago
    That might have been difficult, given that .NET is only 12 years old.
    • custardcream 12y ago
      Actually it goes back to 1999 and was a project that involved HP, Microsoft and Intel. The first release was in 2002 and it was public knowledge in 2000.
    • bmurphy1976 12y ago
      Oh aren't you so smug. I was at the 2000 PDC when they announced C#. We are now just shy of 2015. My 15 is more accurate than your 12.
      • MrBra 12y ago
        Announcing occurs at vaporware stage. Realeasing is what makes it real. So do your math again.
        • bmurphy1976 12y ago
          Do your math again. We were given Tech Preview CDs at the time that contained a preview versions of .NET. So yes, we were able to write and experiment with C# and VB.Net code back then. I was actively looking for a cross-platform replacement for Perl at the time and while C#/.NET was exciting it was also a huge disappointment because it was yet another "runs on Windows only" Microsoft technology. I don't see how you can tell me that I am wrong when I was sitting there with the CDs in MY hand 14.5 years ago actively disappointed because .NET was NOT cross platform like Perl and Java. I'm done arguing this. This is stupid.
• tomp 12y ago
  I want to believe this, but I just don't. .NET is so much more than just the core libraries. There will be a long time until it's on the same level as Java. I hope Microsoft proves me wrong, of course (C# is an awesome language, F# is not bad either), but I will believe this when I see a distribution of Visual Studio running both on Mac/Linux and on Windows (i.e. the same executable, same as Java).
  • bigdubs 12y ago
    Why would you only be convinced if the IDE runs on both platforms. You realize that the IDE and the CLR/Runtime are two different things right?
    • tomp 12y ago
      Any non-trivial GUI program will do, really.
      • bigdubs 12y ago
        Ah got it, the IDE is the benchmark or litmus test of the cross platform compatibility.
      • jmcqk6 12y ago
        Doesn't MonoDevelop count then? http://monodevelop.com/ http://monodevelop.com/ Or do you mean an application from Microsoft? Because I believe Microsoft has actually been using Mono (via Xamarin) to publish applications on iOS.
  • sspiff 12y ago
    > the same executable, same as Java I couldn't care less about binary compatibility. As a developer, I'd rather have 100% (or 99.99%) source code compatibility. I don't mind setting up different downloads or running different builds, as long as I can do it from a single codebase that doesn't have thousands of #ifdef WINDOWS equivalents.
  • weavie 12y ago
• FlyingSnake 12y ago
  This is epic. Peter Thiel was right about creative Monopoly. The new Microsoft under Satya Nadella has totally changed the direction of Microsoft in just a few months. They had one of the best and rock solid development platforms and research division, and loyal customers. The new Azure cloud (Online + On Premise) along with the opening of .Net will change the playing field. I'm sure this is a great new for us developers. The change to work on one of the best runtimes, on a platform of our choice and on one of the best programming environments. Great job Microsoft!
  • nrb 12y ago
    I'd pin more of this on Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman, really. They have been championing this kind of behavior for years within MS.
    • chx 12y ago
      But it's Nadela who allowed that vision to move forward.
      • jhatax 12y ago
        A vision this large cannot move forward without buy-in from key executives, and it is unlikely for the execution to take 9-months. Therefore, like other comments have postulated, the work had to have begun long before Nadella took over as CEO. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this announcement was made under Ballmer. How many of you would trust this announcement/take it at face value? Even going by this thread, there is a deep distrust of Microsoft's moves, and that is despite all the positive press that Satya has received for creating a more "open" Microsoft. IMO, the biggest change that Satya's moves have resulted in is a change in the "perception" of Microsoft's intentions. The non-Microsoft community trusts his intentions, and by association his actions, more than they did Ballmer's. I don't blame this lack of trust, heck I subscribe to it. But attributing all of these decisions to just Satya shows a lack of appreciation for how decisions of this magnitude are made at a company like Microsoft.
      • burnstek 12y ago
• Slackwise 12y ago
  If only this included a revival of IronRuby. And, moonshot, but — giving IronRuby/IronPython as much prominence as PowerShell.
  • stinos 12y ago
    And IronPython! (yes, it works, quite well actually, but porting of numpy etc seems to have stalled years ago IIRC)
    • Slackwise 12y ago
      Well, I was mentioning a revival of IronRuby because it was totally abandoned. I didn't know the state of IronPython, but last I checked, it was still being developed. I want both to be available, though.
• silveira 12y ago
  Any guarantees about patents? Can using and extending .Net will cause in the future claims of software patents violations?
  • Someone1234 12y ago
    http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jul-06.html http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jul-06.html
  • desdiv 12y ago
    Microsoft Corporation and its affiliates (“Microsoft”) promise not to assert any .NET Patents against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, or distributing Covered Code, as part of either a .NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a .NET Runtime. If you file, maintain, or voluntarily participate in any claim in a lawsuit alleging direct or contributory patent infringement by any Covered Code, or inducement of patent infringement by any Covered Code, then your rights under this promise will automatically terminate. This promise is not an assurance that (i) any .NET Patents are valid or enforceable, or (ii) Covered Code does not infringe patents or other intellectual property rights of any third party. No rights except those expressly stated in this promise are granted, waived, or received by Microsoft, whether by implication, exhaustion, estoppel, or otherwise. This is a personal promise directly from Microsoft to you, and you agree as a condition of benefiting from it that no Microsoft rights are received from suppliers, distributors, or otherwise from any other person in connection with this promise. From https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT
    • ralmidani 12y ago
      The absurdity of betting your livelihood on a Microsoft 'promise' aside, to me this reads as a green light to use, but not extend, the .NET runtime. MS still doesn't get free software, and probably never will. Edit: My bad. "As part of a .NET runtime" means you can extend it. But I'd be no less nervous about using it because it is not a license, merely a 'promise' with questionable legal weight.
  • 12y ago
• tosseraccount 12y ago
  I've reverted to WIN32 because users can run a single file, bare bones EXE without the Permission Police blocking you. Too often users aren't allowed to install programs. A simple program that can run on anything since XP is a good solution around Microsoft's sandbox strategy and DLL hell and install programs are big problems. With wine you can even run your simple EXE on Linux and Mac. Native x86 means you run faster than these virtual machine based solutions.
  • ynik 12y ago
    Are you talking about the .NET misfeature that gave managed programs running from network shares less permissions than native programs running from the same network share? Because that was removed a long time ago (.NET 3.5 SP1?).
    • mc_hammer 12y ago
      i think hes saying for less dependencies, and portability, and no required elevated users, and speed: its best to write it in straight win32. i agree and ill chime in down here in the downvotes. i think a lot of authors like the op and myself if we want a speedy app we have to go to win32 api only. c# is slow and even MS doesnt use it in windows desktop mgr or IE. ex: without hw accelleration the hearts game is unplayable on a 2ghz machine. with raw win32 api thats not a problem
  • ghuntley 12y ago
    https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows
• jpgvm 12y ago
  I'm a hardcore *nix guy but boy do I love me some C#. Up until now it's been the best language I have worked with but the worst platform due to it's lack of 'nice things' that we just expect from languages/ecosystems these days. Where 'nice things' is defined as being open-source, having open-source ecosystem of developer tools etc. This isn't so much the beginning (as good stuff has been happening for a couple of years now) but it's a huge step. Thankyou Microsoft.
  • stinos 12y ago
    I'm not really hardcore anything but have been using Windows as main OS for years mainly because of the existence of VS. And boy it would be awesome if the stuff I write in C# now would just run on *nix :]
  • eloisant 12y ago
    C# as a language is better than Java, but not as good as Scala.
    • nathas 12y ago
      Can you explain why you think so?
      • lmm 12y ago
        Most of the selling points on scala-lang.org still apply over C# - type inference, pattern matching, case classes (C# makes these less bad than Java, but the field/property distinction can still bite you), an inheritance model that supports the good parts of multiple inheritance without the problems, covariance/contravariance, for/yield syntax that's generic and user-controlled, higher-kinded types. It takes a while for your code to get big enough for the last part to matter, but it's huge when it does - you can handle any kind of "context" in a generic way, e.g. async calls, error handling, audit logging, software transactional memory, or custom things for e.g. database access. F# has a number of these specific implementations but they're kind of "hard-coded" in the language rather than fully extensible. So I guess the pitch is: imagine C# async/await could be "just a library", and other contexts that you wanted to handle similarly could also be a library, and the resulting functions are first-class citizens in the type system (no awkward choices of whether a particular function is async or not, you can handle that generically).
• _stephan 12y ago
  "We are open sourcing the RiyuJit and the .NET GC and making them both cross-platform." That's incredible!
  • _stephan 12y ago
    Apparently the .NET runtime and Mono will merge: https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/532558786486370304 https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/532558786486370304
    • rip747 12y ago
      reading that tweet brought back feeling of the whole Rails, Merb merge. Awesome to hear!
    • rip747 12y ago
      reading that tweet brought back feeling of the whole Rails, Merb merge. Awesome to hear!
• AndrewDucker 12y ago
  This is massive. I love the C# language, and hopefully this will lead to wider adoption, and usage on more architectures/operating systems.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• presty 12y ago
  This is pretty cool. Java (the platform) is finally getting a much needed competitor and alternative. And a VM that was built from scratch to support multiple languages. The next decade will be interesting.
• _stephan 12y ago
  Google cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingNET2015NETasOpenSourceNETonMacandLinuxandVisualStudioCommunity.aspx http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
  • imarihantnahata 12y ago
    This cache link gives me a 404 :( and the actual link is not working as well.
    • _stephan 12y ago
      I've updated the link. Does it work better now? Btw, if you copy the original link into the Google search field, you get a search result with the page, and then you can just view the cached version by clicking on the small green arrow at the right side of the URL.
      • imarihantnahata 12y ago
        Yes, that's the first thing I tried, doesn't work for me. Also your updated link is not working.
        • felipesabino 12y ago
          they the text only version http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingNET2015NETasOpenSourceNETonMacandLinuxandVisualStudioCommunity.aspx&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
• FreakyT 12y ago
  I hope this positively affects projects using outdated versions of Mono, like Unity. I'd love to see them move to a more up-to-date version of .NET, and I wonder if this could enable them to do that.
  • _random_ 12y ago
    I hope not, this way we will see a bit more of healthy competition in the indie game engine space. This is something Unity desperately needs.
    • jjoonathan 12y ago
      Honest question from an outsider: it looks like Epic and Crytek have finally gotten around to moving in to the "low-end" of the game engine market. What's still unique about unity?
      • bussiere 12y ago
        Laziness. And your graphic designer can use it. As a lot of engine, it's nice when you want something simple very quick. But when you want to tweak it or make it things more specific it's a lot of time a pain in the *. It can save time in the beginning and you will prototype early. Easy to use and easy to access.
        • unoti 12y ago
          I work on a team with a graphic designer who cannot code at all, and is doing amazing things with Unreal Engine. This includes coding shaders (yes, shaders!) using only the blueprint drag and drop system. You just set up how you want it to look, and the system compiles it to shaders under the covers. The technology is super amazing. The revolution in competition for indie game development platforms is here. I don't know why Crytek is doing, but Unreal Engine is very usable and amazing technology.
          • _random_ 12y ago
• MangoDiesel 12y ago
  It will be interesting to see how this works out, and how many resources are put behind it. If it does allow developers to choose to work on Linux/Mac for .NET development, it will put a lot of pressure on Windows to create a great product.
• jacquesm 12y ago
  It's funny how Nadella has moved the needle more for developers in 9 months than Ballmer did in the last decade or so, and all that without running around like a madman too. Pretty good. I'll never switch back to MS for what they've done in the past but it is nice to see them try hard to become a nicer player in the software eco-system. Google and Apple need some other party to keep them sharp, it might as well be MS.
  • sremani 12y ago
    I am sure Nadella deserves credit, but I think the real genius behind this is ScottGu. Whoever it is, its a welcome change.
    • jacquesm 12y ago
      Policy is made at the top. I can't imagine this happening under Ballmer, though I agree with you that others (Miguel for one) have a lot to do with this.
      • walkon 12y ago
        The open sourcing moves were in the works well before Nadella was CEO.
      • Finster 12y ago
        Agreed. Just look at what Ballmer did with Office for iPad.
    • NicoJuicy 12y ago
      Don't forget Scott Hanselman... I don't think this all would have been possible without any of these persons though. They all deserve some respects.. Even the ones who aren't always visible or the ones who already left Microsoft ( Eg. Phil Haack has made the switch to Github probably because of his opensource work in Microsoft) They started opensource within Microsoft under Ballmer, so he deserves some respect to. But i'm sure Nadella is making more room for improvement and betting more "all-in" I just know some people at Microsoft use *nix tools all the time, Asp.Net MVC took over some awesome RoR features, they integrated NodeJS, LocalDB is the alternative for SQLLite and etc... Microsoft does everything it can to integrate good features and they won't go away anytime soon. They also have the best compatibility in any programming language i know (with .Net) to be a safe bet for businesses... Hell, even VB6 still works (any Windows Server and a RDP connection) and that has been released in 1998 => 16 years ago!
• _stephan 12y ago
  According to Scott Hanselman they are also open sourcing their new RyuJIT and even the GC. Incredible! http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingNET2015NETasOpenSourceNETonMacandLinuxandVisualStudioCommunity.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingNET2015NETasOpenSour... or http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingNET2015NETasOpenSourceNETonMacandLinuxandVisualStudioCommunity.aspx http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
  • _stephan 12y ago
    Apparently the .NET runtime and Mono will merge: https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/532558786486370304 https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/532558786486370304
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• wilsonfiifi 12y ago
  This is such a bitter sweet announcement for me! I had just made up my mind to stop language hopping and settle/focus on Python and Go for backend development. But now C#, my first love, has come back to whisper sweet nothings in my ear! Still this is great news and kudos to Microsoft for taking this bold step in the right direction.
• SEJeff 12y ago
  I do wonder what this means for the mono project
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • tgb 12y ago
    They seem to be cooperating with Xamarin, to some extent: "To further support cross-platform mobile development with .NET, as part of their strategic partnership, Microsoft and Xamarin announced a new streamlined experience for installing Xamarin from Visual Studio, as well as announced the addition of Visual Studio support to its free offering Xamarin Starter Edition — available later in the year." http://news.microsoft.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-takes-net-open-source-and-cross-platform-adds-new-development-capabilities-with-visual-studio-2015-net-2015-and-visual-studio-online/ http://news.microsoft.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-takes-net-ope...
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  • candl 12y ago
    According to Scott, both projects will merge together: https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/532558786486370304 https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/532558786486370304
• fapjacks 12y ago
  Too little, too late. At the end of the day, you're still being forced to pay a company to use their shitty software. Once you lose developers, you lose the race.
  • coldtea 12y ago
    The thing is, it's anything but shitty. C# is one of the best languages out there for generic enterprise work and app development, and there's a magnigicent next gen language in F# thrown in, and a great web framework.
    • iamjustasking 12y ago
      "C# is one of the best languages out there for generic enterprise work and app development" - i see you have great tools if cs is soooo good.
      • tdsamardzhiev 12y ago
        For enterprise work I'd actually agree that nothing beats C#. I also love Haskell, but let's be honest - it won't get me hired, or at least not here in Bulgaria.
        • iamjustasking 12y ago
          "For enterprise work I'd actually agree that nothing beats C#." - i'm sad to read this. It's a pain to develop even a simple thing with c#/java because of the 'great' lang design and ugly tools. "I also love Haskell, but let's be honest - it won't get me hired, or at least not here in Bulgaria." - with a toy lang, nobody(if sane) will hire you.
          • coldtea 12y ago
            "with a toy lang, nobody(if sane) will hire you" C# is the "toy lang"? How old are you exactly?
• reitanqild 12y ago
  Now, with a patent promise amd a MIT license, any chance that android could build on .Net going forward? That would take more than a few non public meetings betweenn G and MS I guess but possibly better than having to tiptoe around Oracle in the long run?
  • ajross 12y ago
    Only by either breaking compatibility or including two managed runtimes on every device. Really other than the C# language itself, there's not much to recommend the .NET core stuff over the ART runtime (which is in the process of replacing Dalvik). .NET has much broader library support, but that has to be balanced against the need to ship a lean(ish) runtime (c.f. the installed size of a Windows Phone image vs. Android!). And if Google really wanted to play games with source language (which they don't seem to), there is no shortage of very decent JVM-targetting environments either.
• mnglkhn2 12y ago
  At the moment .NET is making great inroads into all mobile platforms (mainly due to Xamarin's iOS and Android platforms). The one area where Microsoft needs to push more i son the server side: to be able to develop ASP.NET apps and push them to Linux servers. You can do it now but not as smooth and stable as it should be. When this happens, then the circle is complete: you can write both client and server code in C#/F# from within Visual Studio. Quite a powerful combo at that point!
  • nimbosa 12y ago
    i think the potential for F# just got bigger and better with a brighter future! this pretty much highlights the whole movement at Microsoft +Xamarin: (and directly answers most of the questions in this thread) Microsoft intends to make Xamarin's job a lot easier and realign its developer-oriented strategy in the same direction Scott Hanselman outlines it concisely here (http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx): Delivering on its promise to support cross-platform development, Microsoft is providing the full .NET server stack in open source, including ASP.NET, the .NET compiler, the .NET Core Runtime, Framework and Libraries, enabling developers to build with .NET across Windows, Mac or Linux. Through this implementation, Microsoft will work closely with the open source community, taking contributions for future improvements to .NET and will work through the .NET Foundation. “A strong, open source, cross-platform CLR opens significant new options for building large server-based systems,” said Brian McCallister, chief technology officer, Groupon. “This significantly expands the choices developers have when finding the right tool to solve their problem. I’m very excited to have access to the quality virtual machine and tooling of the CLR without having to completely rework our production infrastructure in order to run it!” ____ this will be of great interest to those already using the CLR as it gives more incentive to those developers / dev shops
• marcofiset 12y ago
  I love the direction Microsoft is taking towards open source and targeting multiple platforms!
• jnem 12y ago
  This completely caught me by suprise. Will .NET see a comeback now? Or is it too little too late? In any event, this is a huge move for Microsoft who has historically avoided open source(ive always thought of yhem as the anti-open-source company).
  • gagege 12y ago
    "Don't call it a comeback." IMO, it never really went away. It's still huge in enterprise.
    • jnem 12y ago
      Truth, they are still there. Like many other Microsoft products they will likely be here for many years to come (with or with going open source). I just meant to say that it seems up till now we were seeing a decline in the .NET community. I know more than a few MS pro's jump ship, including at least one MVP.
• jacquesm 12y ago
  You were beaten to the punch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8595905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8595905
  • buckbova 12y ago
    It's a different article of course. But I gave you an upvote anyway. Way too many "MS Open Sources .NET . . .. " links right now. And the hanselman blog won't load for me.
    • Guvante 12y ago
      To be fair massive interest in this is expected given Hacker News' population.
• untog 12y ago
  This is amazing. But I really, really wish Microsoft would buy Xamarin. I know it sounds counter-productive - they're doing great work on their own - but the subscription costs associated with Xamarin hold it back. MS would have every motivation to release it for free to try to corner the app development market.
• noobermin 12y ago
  I'm curious what this means for mono, then.
• pjc50 12y ago
  The politics of this are interesting, and IMO related to the decline of the PC as a platform. Suddenly Microsoft is the outsider crying for "openness" and "freedom" while hammering on the gates of the Google/Apple ecosystem. For Microsoft, it's less bad if everyone switches to an uncontrolled platform than if they switch to a platform locked in by a competitor. The embrace/extend/extinguish logic works the other way when Apple are driving it. (They've done fairly well at killing off Flash, and Silverlight never stood a chance in this environment)
  • czottmann 12y ago
    "Microsoft is […] hammering on the gates […]" I see what you did there.
  • Guvante 12y ago
    > The politics of this are interesting, and IMO related to the decline of the PC as a platform. Why would this signal the death of PC? If anything this is most closely related to the death of Windows Server, since a ton of application development is done via the web.
    • valarauca1 12y ago
      "Signalling the Death of X" is a horrible term to use. Mainframes have been dead since the early 80's. Yet IBM maintained being relatively strong until only recently, surviving 30 years on a "Dead" platform.
    • pjc50 12y ago
      I said "decline" rather than "death"; this isn't Highlander, there can be more than one platform. It's not as profitable and certainly not as trendy, but it's not vanishing yet.
  • pjmlp 12y ago
    > Suddenly Microsoft is the outsider crying for "openness" and "freedom" while hammering on the gates of the Google/Apple ecosystem. Just like Apple. Apple only became open source friend after being acquired by NeXT (this is actually what happened inside). The old Apple from the Mac OS 1 - 9 days was anything but open.
• NicoJuicy 12y ago
  Being a fan of Android and Microsoft for years... I truelly hope that Google would discuss about changing from Java to C#... They don't have to change to c#, but this would be a win for both of them (Microsoft and Google) and a huge loss for Oracle/Apple.
  • miguelrochefort 12y ago
    It's called Xamarin.
    • V-2 12y ago
      Yeah and it costs one grand a year. Plus it's playing constant catch up with Android SDK. I remember moving files manually or my projects wouldn't build (when Google made some change in folder structure that Xamarin hadn't reacted to yet). Don't get me wrong, I think it's awesome, it just has some limitations that are beyond Xamarin's control. Plus it's pricey.
• fsloth 12y ago
  Hot toes in springwater! I had figured out that since .Net was proprietary I really should ween myself away from the sweet, sweet F# and learn some clojure but it seems Microsoft has stumped on my plans for self improvement. Immutable by default, algebraic datastructures with pattern matching to boot, great concurrency story and now actually open with permissive licence. Mind. Blown.
  • djur 12y ago
    Wasn't F# already open source? And it runs on Mono. This does bump F# up quite a bit in my estimation, though; I never loved that Mono was a reimplementation of a proprietary platform.
• MagicWishMonkey 12y ago
  Does anyone know if this means an OSX/Linux version of Visual Studio might one day be possible?
  • bchen 12y ago
    I am hoping JetBrains folks will port their suite of .Net tools to other platforms. Since the core of these tools is already cross platform (JVM-based), it may happen faster than Microsoft does to Visual Studio.
    • Someone1234 12y ago
      Most of the JetBrains products won't be relevant when Roslyn ships. Visual Studio 2015 already ships with many ReSharper features out of the box, with the ability to add the missing ones being made trivial by the new Roslyn APIs. I definitely won't be running ReSharper in VS 2015.
  • jesse_m 12y ago
    That would be nice. Then I can use Atmel Studio on Linux
  • felixrieseberg 12y ago
    Microsoftie here. Pure speculation on my part, but Visual Studio in its full form might be one of the most impressive pieces we have at Microsoft - but definitely one of the most complex. Good intentions aside, bringing VS over to *nix would involve a gigantic amount of (costly) man hours...
• tdicola 12y ago
  Great news, but I think people need to realize this is really just Microsoft pledging to merge and support what Mono has already been doing. You won't magically be able to take a WPF app and run it on your Mac. You will however be able to write a server app or maybe simple command line tool that runs on Mac & Linux. It's great news to see Microsoft acknowledging and supporting Mono, but there isn't a magic switch that will flip and everything suddenly works on every platform.
  • alanh 12y ago
    Right. And that is a good thing. Java has shown us that no one really wants write-once-run-everywhere GUI software, as it never feels "right" or at-home on guest platforms
    • MrBra 12y ago
      So because Java shown that then it is a good thing to try for? Does Java represent to you a sort of a unbeatable limit that no one could possibly pass? Have you ever seen a JavaFX app?
• jbob2000 12y ago
  aka "We're actually facing competition from open source now, so we're going to listen to what people have been saying for years. Love us?"
  • aespinoza 12y ago
    You know but this is actually very good. This in the end will make it better for the developers. And I loved that the licensing is MIT instead of Mono's LGPL for the runtime. This will allow Jetbrains to create a good Intelli(j|n) IDE for C#. :D
  • wernercd 12y ago
    aka "Thanks for giving us what we want, but you're so evil that I can't get past the $ in the name Micro$oft." Stay closed source? People bitch. Open source the software? People bitch. Can't win.
    • bad_user 12y ago
      Well I'm one of those people that bitched for as long as the CLR remained closed-source. Not anymore :-)
  • akmiller 12y ago
    You really need to step back and look at how much Microsoft has already changed under the leadership of Satya Nadella. It does appear that he has a completely different vision of what Microsoft will be in the future compared to what Ballmer had.
    • GhotiFish 12y ago
      The devil you know eh? Microsoft has being at the locus of so much bad behaviour in the tech sector that I really have to wonder. Even if Stallman started running the company, how much could it change?
    • nightski 12y ago
      I'd say it started long before Satya Nadella became CEO. However it is definitely continuing in the right direction.
• fit2rule 12y ago
  This demonstrates the importance of documentation in the framework wars. What could Microsoft possibly gain from open-sourcing .NET? They already have a few thousand great developers working on their jeweled prize, designed to lure developers to the brand as resolutely, and immutably, as possible. .NET going open source is Microsoft admitting that, despite its best efforts, developers still want to know whats going on behind the curtain, whether the mirror really works, and just what kind of smoke is being blown up their ass in the effort to capture their minds and bind them to the brand.
  • daigoba66 12y ago
    To be fair, the source code for most of the core .NET libraries has been freely available under a "reference source license" for a very long time now. You could look behind the curtain, you just can't modify or redistribute.
    • fit2rule 12y ago
      So it was not really 'open' then, was it? More like "sources available for reading only" ..
      • nmeofthestate 12y ago
        Yes, but this open-ness is irrelevant to your point - "developers still want to know whats going on behind the curtain"
        • fit2rule 12y ago
          Then what you're saying is that this is hardly news, and hardly of note in any sense other than they're going to give the community .. what exactly?
• edpichler 12y ago
  Good to us, and good to Microsoft. Great news, but this platform should be born as Open Source since the beginning. Anyway, before late than never.
• Immortalin 12y ago
  Good strategy Microsoft!
• codeshaman 12y ago
  Good move, but (too) late. The move is designed to attract iOS and Android Devs to .NET. But let's see: As an iOS developer, I've invested years in learning Objective-C and Cocoa, UIKit, etc. Now I'm starting with Swift. I'm sure a lot of iOS devs feel this way. Besides, if I can't use it from OSX, then I'm out. Why should I forget everything and learn C#/.NET ? If I want a write-once-run-everywhere thing, then I could go for one of the miriad Javascript or HTML5 cross-platform frameworks or C++ with Qt, JUCE or the likes. Same thought pattern applies for Android/Java - why would a seasoned Android/Java developer want to learn a whole new framework and programming language ? Is C#/.NET so much better than Java/Android or ObjC/Swift that it mandates switching to it ?
  • positivejam 12y ago
    Maybe it's not so much about drawing developers to them but trying to keep existing .NET developers from straying?
  • potatolicious 12y ago
    This doesn't seem like a mobile play at all, honestly. They're opening the core, and large portions of the web server stack. This points to it being a play for web development, not native mobile. There are some additional integrations with Xamarin - but Xamarin isn't owned by MS nor is it the key highlight of today's announcements.
    • codeshaman 12y ago
      I should have read TFA before commenting :) But that is even more puzzling. The backend space is so crowded with native, scripting and exotic languages, that I really don't see how they can attract hardcore c/c++/go/node.js/python/ruby/perl/php/erlang/haskell/lisp or Java crowds to .NET. Maybe it's exciting for existing .net developers to be able to deploy their backend apps on linux servers.
      • aggronn 12y ago
        You could have said the same thing about several of the languages you listed, even within the last 5 years. The difference here is that C# already has a massive userbase.
• iamjustasking 12y ago
  Self advertising by ms... What a surprise!
• derengel 12y ago
  If the support for osx and linux depends on xamarin, the future of .NET on those platforms is very dubious.
  • migueldeicaza 12y ago
    It does not.
    • coldtea 12y ago
      Don't feed the troll. He didn't gave even one argument. Just spilled some venom.
  • aespinoza 12y ago
    Why would that be the case ? I think Xamarin has done a pretty good job on pushing the boundaries of C# and the framework on Mac and Linux. Mono's SIMD is one example: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Nov-03.html http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Nov-03.html
• iamjustasking 12y ago
  Repost1.
• iamjustasking 12y ago
  Repost2.
  • jdpage 12y ago
    This is big news; it probably warrants two or three front-page posts. :)
• iamjustasking 12y ago
  Repost...
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• AdventureJason 12y ago
  Microsoft's CVP Soma Somasegar will be answering questions about today's announcements on TechCrunch article -- in comments -- at 2:30pm Eastern today. http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-takes-net-open-source-and-cross-platform/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-takes-net-open-so...
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• AdventureJason 12y ago
  Microsoft's CVP Soma Somasegar will be answering questions about today's announcements on TechCrunch article -- in comments -- at 2:30pm Eastern today. http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-takes-net-open-source-and-cross-platform/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-takes-net-open-so...
• jot 12y ago
  Could work on this have started before Steve Ballmer left? Maybe he took my 2007 email to him more seriously that his response let on: http://jonathanmarkwell.com/2013/08/23/me-and-steve-ballmer-in-2007/ http://jonathanmarkwell.com/2013/08/23/me-and-steve-ballmer-...
• jordanilchev 12y ago
  http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2014/Nov-12.html http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2014/Nov-12.html here is what Miguel of Xamarin has to say
• skittles 12y ago
  This is going to be a huge boost to ClojureCLR, IronPython, and F#. I think F# especially is going to take off in popularity now that its best VM target is going to run on Linux and Mac.
  • agentultra 12y ago
    I hope so. F# is a really nice language. Microsoft Research is an amazing lab with some very bright minds working there. It'd be nice to be able to use some of the fruits of their labor without having a steep entry fee to evaluate it. Thanks MS, this is a good move.
• none_for_me_thx 12y ago
  Here's the announcement from Microsoft: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2014/11/12/opening-up-visual-studio-and-net-to-every-developer-any-application-net-server-core-open-source-and-cross-platform-visual-studio-community-2013-and-preview-of-visual-studio-2015-and-net-2015.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2014/11/12/opening...
• grandalf 12y ago
  After recently using Microsoft's online tools (OWA, web-based office, etc.) and the IOS version of OWA, I'm shocked at how bad the UX has become. Recently, there was a bug that makes the IOS OWS client replace its standard icons with emoji. It's been over 90 days and the bug is still not fixed. There have recently been a lot of bold decisions at Microsoft. If anything can turn around a dying company it's this kind of approach.
  • grandalf 12y ago
    Not sure why the downvotes. I'm rooting for MS to be successful.
    • guardian5x 12y ago
      Didn't downvote you, but maybe because that sounds a bit anecdotal. Also for a "dying company", they do very well.
      • grandalf 12y ago
        True, though it was clearly voiced as anecdotal and not pretending to be otherwise. MS is doing well but there have been a number of shifts in the landscape MS has yet to successfully navigate.
• JeremyMorgan 12y ago
  I feel like the last couple years I've been cheerleading for MS and telling people how much they've changed, how open things are becoming, and how awesome the development experience is. It's fallen on deaf ears or met with resistance, but today's announcements are really gonna drive the point home. Developers need to start looking more seriously at C#/.Net. The Scotts (Hanselman/Guthrie), Miguel De Icaza and so many others have worked tirelessly on this, and we (.Net Developers) owe them a ton of gratitude for helping to make sure this ecosystem doesn't wither on the vine.
  • aerique 12y ago
    Too little, too late IMHO. Also MS has always come across as very opportunistic, giving the impression they will drop support for this if it serves them better.
    • shmerl 12y ago
      That's my feeling as well. No amount of opening stuff can fix their reputation at this stage. Unless they'll completely drop all their crooked practices, which is not likely.
      • martin1975 12y ago
        They could switch to Linux and drop Windows. That would surely revive their image in my view. Is it April 1st already?
    • hackinthebochs 12y ago
      What company is not opportunistic? They are by definition.
      • aerique 12y ago
        That is why I said "very opportunistic".
        • 12y ago
• omarish 12y ago
  Link to source code: https://github.com/microsoft https://github.com/microsoft
• korobool 12y ago
  C# is the most modern, and one of the best languages we have in the market. Linux is the best platform. Hope to see them truly together. Thank you MS guys for the contributing into world industry.
  • 72deluxe 12y ago
    Linux as the best platform is subjective! It isn't the best for desktop use, not for me anyway. C# has been available for Linux for years. I would argue that C++ is also a brilliant language, and is just improving and improving. But anyway, just another platform to write another language on. More employment opportunities for all of us.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  • aespinoza 12y ago
    These are different articles, they might related to the same news, but very different takes. This one comes from the founder of Mono.
• sciurus 12y ago
  This is a duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8595935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8595935
• biafra 12y ago
  The way I see it, I still need a Windows machine to run VS. I will consider their platform when I can develop for it on MacOSX.
• bkeroack 12y ago
  Next up (hopefully): Windows core subsystems (basically everything minus the GUI shell, a la Darwin)
  • ngcazz 12y ago
    I wish Windows was Unix on the inside.
    • ygra 12y ago
      What would be the benefit of that?
      • mjard 12y ago
        Updates without rebooting.
• lawl 12y ago
  Can anyone clarify for me, does this include WPF? I remember I wanted to run a few apps off github on linux and they used WPF, which mono doesn't support. Otherwise mono seemed to run pretty much everything i threw at it. Can someone with .NET experience clarify for me what this will enable that mono doesn't (yet)? In other words, if .net will continue to be riddled with windows only API's I'm not really interested. The article seemed to mostly focus on the server side of things, but I'm not really sure if they can pull many devs over to writing application servers on .net. It will be hard competing against Java there.
  • hamxiaoz 12y ago
    Server side makes more sense. WPF is an UI framework, even it includes WPF, the user experience will be bad just because it looks so differently than native apps.
    • captainmuon 12y ago
      OTOH, WPF apps already look different than native apps on Windows. Look at pushbuttons for example, they are completely flat in WPF and have a gradient in Win32. (WPF controls are not drawn via uxtheme, but have styles defined in XAML.) WPF is part of a trend I believe to see, going away from strictly consistent UI styles: QT used to emphasize simple widgets that you could theme consistently. With QT quick the emphasis is on individual per-app styles themed with css (but you also have the old widgets). Very similar situation in GTK3, where cross-desktop themeing is deemphasized (they removed support for changing theme colors, hid the theme changer in gnome-tweak-tools, and some developers advocated removing themeing altogether). At the same time, individual GNOME3 apps experiment much more with nonstandard widgets and CSS than before. Windows 8 "Metro" apps are similar. With the simple, clean design language, I thought they would be really design-by-intent. A la "I want a list here, and I want to link it to a detail view. My elements have these properties. Build me a CRUD interface and spice it up with these colors." and it would generate a Metro UI. But instead, after playing with Visual Studio, I find it's almost the opposite: "Place a rectangle at these coordinates, a label there. When the user clicks here, run that code." There is very little in the development experience to encourage consistent UIs, and you have to look up stuff like recommended font sizes manually on MSDN. Naturally, it makes it impossible to upgrade the UI style over all apps in a later Windows version. Same in Android. Try to make an app look up-to-date, even on currently unreleased OS versions is impossible. UI code is way to low-level, considering a huge fraction of apps are just fancy list-views. I could go on for a while. The point is that (unfortunately) UI consistency is not a priority nowadays (maybe except on OSX), at least when it comes to tooling (the efforts of many developers to still make consistent UX/UI are very laudable). And compared with the competitors, you could write at least as nice apps in WPF.
• colbyh 12y ago
  Microsoft people correct me if I'm wrong - but this feels like a decision Ballmer never would have let pass? This feels huge to me as someone that has always been on *nix variants but that has been told the .Net environment is amazing as long as you're willing to pay/work on Windows. I still probably won't switch over to C# or F# any time soon but it's good to know I could actually work on a WinMo app if needed.
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• api 12y ago
  Wow. The new Microsoft indeed. If there are any MS people in this thread: I would pay for Visual Studio for Mac and Linux if I could also use its GUI designers on those platforms. If I could write a GUI front-end in C# and design it with VS and ship it for Windows, Mac, Linux, and possibly others, then I'd definitely pay money for that. Right now we've got Qt, Java, and possibly HTML5+node-webkit for that, and none of those are anywhere near as good as MS's GUI tooling and IDE.
• elchief 12y ago
  "Oh, shit", said Oracle.
  • edwinnathaniel 12y ago
    Good, hopefully this pushes Oracle to refocus, reinvest in Java. Competition is good. Microsoft still have megatons of work to do to catch up Java (mindshare or tooling wise).
    • orf 12y ago
      Really? I think they are catching up fast on the mindshare front. Java is not cool anymore, it's grey and verbose, and I think C# has got nicer features. Also VS beats the pants off Eclipse any day.
      • edwinnathaniel 12y ago
        Silicon Valley is all OSS/Java. ElasticSearch, Hadoop, Cassandra, HBase, HDFS (mixed with C). Newer infrastructure for big-data are either Java, Scala, Clojure (one or two tools). Some of the startups also use Java (not all). I rarely see C#. So yes, C# is not catching up yet. Sorry, Eclipse + Ecosystems (that include plugins/integrations and whatnot) = beats VS any day (with or without pants). And if you have money, IntelliJ is right around the corner circling VS. I think people don't realize that comparing the Java and .NET requires dragging the community, the platform, the tools, the plugins, and everything else in-between. I granted in Windows/Desktop .NET is the king. Everywhere else it's the other way around by a long margin.
        • deleted 12y ago
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        • amalag 12y ago
          .NET is big in enterprise too, not just desktop.
          • 12y ago
• jangid 12y ago
  Microsoft had designed .NET to be independent of platforms. But the strategy advices they got were mostly wrong; so they did not release it for other platforms. Open Source alternatives existed (Mono) but due to unavailability of committed support enterprises did not endorse it. Now there is very little hope that the *NIX users will now use .NET languages. It was a great platform though. I was impressed by the it when I first went to Teched in year 2002.
• curveship 12y ago
  I started as an open source programmer. Then I got a job as a .NET programmer. Now I'm an open source programmer again. Feels good :)
  • general_failure 12y ago
    I don't think you understand what open source programmer means :) You have to actually contribute to opensource projects to become one. Just using them means nothing.
    • camdenre 12y ago
      Maybe he works for Microsoft?
    • curveship 12y ago
      What makes you think I haven't :) I spent several years as a Debian package maintainer, plus the usual mix of patches and bug reports to several projects.
      • general_failure 12y ago
        Ah, ok :) I didn't mean to offend you (if you took any!)
• robodale 12y ago
  Well, fuck me and call me Shirley...this is awesome news.
• tdsamardzhiev 12y ago
  I'm glad the new CEO isn't stuck in the 1980s! Props to Microsoft. I hope it isn't too late for them.
• pjmlp 12y ago
  Also as part of the announcement clang will get some Visual Studio love!
• Tiktaalik 12y ago
  Potentially great news for Unity game developers. Unity uses an ancient version of Mono that doesn't support all sorts of sensible things. Maybe now some future version of Unity will have a more cutting edge .NET library.
  • numo16 12y ago
    Unity has been developing their own runtime for a while now to get away from the mono licensing costs of using a new version. I'll be interested to see how they react to this turn of events.
• deleted 12y ago
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• Animats 12y ago
  Is this an abandonware move? Does it mean .NET is on the way out, and Microsoft's way forward is something else? A year or two ago, Microsoft was talking about the future of application development being Javascript/HTML/CSS.
  • Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
    I doubt it. The .NET ecosystem is strong and C# is still the only way to write code for Windows without growing to hate the platform.
  • ihsw 12y ago
    This is likely a response to the impending release of Android Studio and Android 5.0 -- there are a lot of developers warming up to Android development that previously weren't involved. Not only that but Java/the JVM drives the bottom line of a lot of places where it matters (mindshare, money).
• bonsai80 12y ago
  It's like slashdot on april fools day!
• perlgeek 12y ago
  This is huge. A few months ago, we decided to write a big new software component at $work, basically a service layer that is going to accumulate lots of business logic. We discussed several programming languages, and thought that a statically typed language might be a good fit (we mostly did perl and python so far). C# was dismissed pretty quickly, because .Net was closed source, and Mono had the reputation of being a bit second rate (possibly not well-founded, but also hard to debunk for somebody not in the community). I mentioned that Roslyn was also open source, but it was hard to convince anybody when the "main" implementation was still closed source (and we're very much an open + linux shop). If this had come a year earlier, we might have picked C#. Maybe there'll be another project here in a few years...
  • katbyte 12y ago
    What did you end up picking?
  • jaked89 12y ago
    What ever you were designing, it's almost certain that a more expensive, and mission critical system than yours was already built with C#. Objecting to a major language as C# because it's "closed-source" seems irrational to me. Why does it matter if it's open or closed-source? It's not like you can realistically invest time to dig in the source code and modify it, in the rare case that you found a problem. C# had huge amounts of money invested on it, probably more than your entire project you were planning.
    • perlgeek 12y ago
      > Why does it matter if it's open or closed-source? It's not like you can realistically invest time to dig in the source code and modify it, in the rare case that you found a problem. Except that exactly this has happened with lots of libraries that we use, and sometimes also language implementations. Compilers and interpreters aren't any more scary than other projects, really.
• anthony_barker 12y ago
  MSFT Pls fix ODF before you claim to be open! https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/elibrary/case/complex-singularity-versus-openness https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/elibrary/case/complex-singularit...
• aarongray 12y ago
  A couple decades late to the party, but surprising nonetheless. ^_^
• cyber1 12y ago
  Super! Thankyou Microsoft.
• chenster 12y ago
  what does iOS developer get out of it? What's the implications for iOS & Mac developers? It would be nice that I can finally develop iOS and Mac apps using C# and .NET coming from a seasoned .NET developers to iOS developer. But doesn't Mono can just do that already? Besides Apple will never approve apps not written in Swift or Object-C (exclude PhoneGap).
  • DanKlinton 12y ago
    You can do this few years already with Xamarin. Thousands of developers are doing this today. What this changes is better .Net framework compatibility(less bugs) because Microsoft .Net source code will be reused.
• alkonaut 12y ago
  I have been working with .NET for 11 years since 1.0beta (On the same application, i.e. have been continously pushing a massive codebase through every released version of the framework yet!), so to me this so huge. It has felt like I would have to go do Javascript, or go back to java, if I wanted to leave the .NET ecosystem or do something radically different. Not anymore. Feels like not just Windows-based server (asp.net) and desktop (WPF/WinForms) apps are .NET based in the future, but a good chunk of what today is Node.js, Java, Objective-C and so on will be .NET, and hopefully F#, in the future. If you want a high-level lang runtime with good IDE support, you can just use .NET now. You know, unless you want Ask toolbar.
  • MichaelGG 12y ago
    So, you'd rewrite in JavaScript versus dealing with Mono?
    • alkonaut 12y ago
      Not sure I follow you here, rewrite what?
      • MichaelGG 12y ago
        Sorry my misunderstanding. When you said it sounded like you'd have to go to Java/JavaScript, I thought you meant for the application you've been writing. Either way, I meant that even before this announcement, Mono was a choice (I use it at fairly high-scale server apps) in many cases. It wasn't C# and Windows or Java for anything else.
        • alkonaut 12y ago
          Yeah, Mono was at least realistic in the last year(s), but it was always a bit of a guessing game whether something was going to work or not. Having an official linux/mac os ASP.NET will be huge, even if the functinoal difference is minor compared to Mono. Just knowing it will work tomorrow, and after the next major release is huge. Yesterday I would rather have chosen Node.js than a .NET solution for a small service on Linux, simply because it's safer. Tomorrow I'll be back to rather having pineapples shoved up my nose than write JS.
• dschiptsov 12y ago
  First we have to see it as a standard Debian package. Then we have to look at its memory usage, GC pauses, locking issues. It is much easier to say than to port correctly a large, very complex code-base to an alien platform. (Mono has been written from scratch, if I recall correctly).
• yarrel 12y ago
  Will this wipe out Mono? Please say yes.
• michaelvkpdx 12y ago
  Oregon legalized marijuana on Tuesday. Microsoft open sources .NET today. They say miracles come in 3. What's next?
  • fetbaffe 12y ago
    I get married.
  • igl 12y ago
    adobe brings photoshop to linux crosses fingers
• scotty79 12y ago
  They faked being kind of opensource so many times that I'll believe it when I'll see it.
  • CodeCube 12y ago
    https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/LICENSE :)
    • testymctester 12y ago
      Not GPLv3, watch out for patent issues.
      • readerrrr 12y ago
        https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT
        • testymctester 12y ago
          Patent promise only covers .Net Runtime, so don't touch the rest of the stack.
          • itsboring 12y ago
            Yeesh, give it a rest already.
• giancarlostoro 12y ago
  I really wish they'd make Visual Studio run on other platforms as well... I suppose they'll work on making Office run on Linux next, or at least a full version of Office that's entirely web enabled would be nice too.
• joelthelion 12y ago
  This is really big news. I'm not sure why Microsoft is doing it, though? Seems like a great way to completely kill Windows in the server market.
  • blumkvist 12y ago
    Why would that be the case? Significant portion of Win Server licenses are for MS SQL, Sharepoint and Dynamics, which I doubt will be able to run on Linux. I don't see people using IIS switching to linux either... I know I wouldn't.
  • duncans 12y ago
    Bear in mind Microsoft will happily sell you Linux VMs running in Azure.
    • MrBra 12y ago
      ASP.NET running on Linux servers doesn't magically make people want to buy Linux VM's at Microsoft.
• jayvanguard 12y ago
  Never in Microsoft's history have they ever followed through on a promise of multi-platform support for their infrastructure. They've tried multiple times but they always end up bailing on it or half-assing it to death. I wouldn't believe them this time either.
• SwellJoe 12y ago
  Microsoft only acts right when they're losing. It took the loss of dominance on the web to begin to produce a standards-compliant, modern browser. Silverlight never really took off because it had such limited OS support. And, now that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt they can't win the mobile device market (and are even losing some of the laptop market to Chromebooks, and Android hybrid devices), they'll grudgingly open up their developer tools and support other platforms. I am, of course, happy to see it. But, let's not get too excited about what good Open Source citizens Microsoft have become. Let's let their actions going forward determine that.
  • zmmmmm 12y ago
    > Microsoft only acts right when they're losing. Can you expect anything more, really, in the end? It's why we have to always be vigilant against any company taking a stranglehold on any technology. My biggest question in nearly any technology choice these days is "to what extent does this lock me in?". Because the only thing that really keeps these companies working in your favor is the threat that you can, and will, leave if they don't.
  • Pxtl 12y ago
    I'd say the consumer laptop market is also looking a little scary for them - I think consumers mentally categorize all laptops into two broad groups: "Macbooks", and "garbage". And based on the fact that every major laptop vendor fills out their budget end with embarrassingly bad devices, it's not really an unfair stereotype thanks to the bad reputations these companies have built for themselves.
• tasnimreza 12y ago
  It is really a big news, I'm a .Net guy over couple of years. When i started with .Net i thought why i have to buy everything for development ? Now the day have changed and we found Microsoft in the open source community race. Thank you Microsoft. Visual Studio is awesome, specially debugging when it is in Symbol server debugging. Though i hate the thing 'Not Responding' and your OS is freeze. When your solution growing with 50+ project, it took 4-5min to open and by any chance if you click the solution it will hang.
• claystu 12y ago
  Finally! One of the major players has finally decided to really push cross-platform. Looks like it's time to finally learn F#
• blt 12y ago
  Holy shit, now I don't feel like I wasted so much time learning C# and .NET.
• yohanatan 12y ago
  I see this as a last ditch attempt by Microsoft to stay semi-relevant. Of course this was the great promise of .NET to begin with, but it seems rather late to exercise the option now (some 15 years or so after .NET was created)-- a very desperate move by a dying empire.
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• NicoJuicy 12y ago
  Considering Scott is probably watching this.. What do you think about the near future about running vNext projects on a simple Raspberry Pi (= low-end configurations).
  • shanselman 12y ago
    Yep. Some folks are already doing this.
• penguindev 12y ago
  So when are they going to stop suing android for having the nerve to try to interoperate with their shit FAT filesystem?
• enlightenedfool 12y ago
  Does nvidia NSight now work with VS community edition? They say VS community is fully extensible edition.
• KedarMhaswade 12y ago
  In general, open sourcing is helpful decision (it's also a practical business decision in several cases)! And the possibility of running C# on *nix really creates opportunities in a way that contributors grow. It's a win-win.
• jxm262 12y ago
  Developers can get started with Visual Studio Community 2013 here. <<link is not working>> http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-community-2013-vs http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-com... I think they meant here? http://www.visualstudio.com/news/vs2013-community-vs http://www.visualstudio.com/news/vs2013-community-vs
  • saravanaram 12y ago
    thanks, i was searching this thread to get the correct link.
• logn 12y ago
  Neat. Maybe eventually they'll open source the OS too, but .NET is probably more significant. I wanted some more specifics regarding licenses and found this page helpful: http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/projects http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/projects Hopefully one day they'll support the entire Java runtime so that I can deploy Java apps to the JRE or .NET.
• zmmmmm 12y ago
  For a long time I have held off on embracing .NET even though it offers certain advantages over the JVM ecosystem because it was clearly a Windows-first, everything else second ecosystem. If this changes that then I might for the first time in a long time take a second look at it.
• Someone 12y ago
  Great news, but something else drew my attention: the related stories. I got, among others: "Microsoft Announces Windows 2000 Certification For Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers" "Microsoft and Samsung Reveal Windows Powered Pocket PC For GSM/GPRS Networks" "Microsoft Office 97 Family of Applications Honored With Industry Awards" "Microsoft Invests in General Magic" "Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 Beta Download Demand Overwhelming" Ignoring the time machine aspects, I wonder what made their algorithm come up with these stories. They mention "Microsoft" and "Net", but that is about it.
  • pjc50 12y ago
    "Microsoft and Samsung Reveal Windows Powered Pocket PC For GSM/GPRS Networks" .. in 2003, four years before the iPhone launch. I wonder how that one got messed up? Carrier brokenware? Inadequate hardware?
    • itsboring 12y ago
      Windows Mobile was so so soooooo bad.
• sytelus 12y ago
  I seriously hope this pushes out Java closer to graveyard of forgotten languages. Java had been rotting for a long time without significant progress compared to modern languages including C#. It's only advantage had been that it was cross platform. Now it's owned by lawyers-driven Oracle which is as worse as things can get. Also I really want to stop worry about having my mom install crapware like Ask toolbar and say No to Update Java every single day.
  • Sindisil 12y ago
    While I agree the damn Ask Toolbar thing is abhorrent, you could just check the "Suppress sponsor offers when installing or updating Java" box at the bottom of the Advanced tab in the Java control panel. I know ... I'm surprised they didn't add a "Beware of Jaguar" tab on which to place that option. As for java going to the graveyard -- don't hold your breath. Not that I mind - I actually enjoy coding in Java, given the tools & libraries that are available. Heck, I really don't even mind the language. I'd appreciate better handling of value types, and continued improvement of the GC (both to make it more cache friendly and to provide better control of pause time vs. performance), but really, I find it comfortable and productive.
• sytelus 12y ago
  Here's Github repo: https://github.com/dotnet https://github.com/dotnet. Wow, these things are being released under MIT licence - who would have thought .Net would be more "free-er" than Java? In other news: * Visual Studio 2015 and ASP.NET 5 will support gulp, grunt, bower and npm for front end developers. * OmniSharp is a family of Open Source projects, each with one goal - To enable great .NET development in YOUR editor of choice - http://www.omnisharp.net/ http://www.omnisharp.net/.
  • skeletonjelly 12y ago
    > Visual Studio 2015 and ASP.NET 5 will support gulp, grunt, bower and npm for front end developers. Holy Gates! It's like they're listening or something. Can't wait.
  • e12e 12y ago
    It's amazing that there's not a concrete word about license (and patent grant) choice in the press release, or on the page(s) for MS Visual Studio Community Edition. Someone should remind MS that we've been burned before by "open source" that turned out to be "open for what fits MS, not what fits you". All that said, I'm happy to see this under MIT!
  • drdaeman 12y ago
    Given that the primary issue with .NET/CLR ecosystem adoption was not lack of implementations but unclear situation with software patents, I don't think MIT is a wise option. It's certainly up to Microsoft, but anything with an explicit patent grant would be a much better idea.
    • enL01Ugxc0q6Dzp 12y ago
      They have given an explicit patent grant: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT
• anonyfox 12y ago
  Great. Now release visual studio "native" for OS X and I'd have a look at it. Having to run an emulated windows just to fiddle around in a fairly heavyweight IDE sucks. As nice as C#/F# is, the real fun comes from the powerful IDE. And I just don't do windows anymore, except for occasional gaming (and this only until I finally buy the new retina iMac and throw the last PC at home away).
• plq 12y ago
  I see so much emotion in this thread. Yes, I was there to witness what M$FT (ha! take that Mr. Gates!) did around the dawn of this millenium as well, but we had all felt that the times they were a-changin' when Slashdot retired the Bill-the-evil-Borg image already. It's just Microsoft refused to adapt until now, which e.g. made them miss The Mobile in its entirety. So, Microsoft is finally adapting. But what are they actually doing? Why did Microsoft finally decided to make .Net cross-platform? What's in it for them? Look at what's in this shiny new package: They've open-sourced just the core runtime. They are not open-sourcing Visual Studio. Or WPF. Or SQL Server. Or Active Directory. Or Office. There's one thing the Linux ecosystem is pretty good at: Scaling, both up and down. There are technical reasons for that, but none could possibly be an issue for a software powerhouse the size of Microsoft. There are also commercial reasons for that, most important being: You just can't beat free. So that's what Microsoft is finally moving against -- Dear startup founder who is afraid that licensing costs will eat him/her alive while his/her "Growth Hacking" strategy is working, dear embedded programmer whose tiny IoT device that just can't cope with the whole Windows mumbo-jumbo, welcome to the Microsoft platform -- You can now safely run your C# on these free platforms as well. So, Microsoft is finally back in the game. They even seem to be playing nice. But the question in everyone's mind is: For how long?
  • seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    > So, Microsoft is finally back in the game. They even seem to be playing nice. But the question in everyone's mind is: For how long? I think a better question might be: what next? (Disclaimer: optimistic MS employee)
• everydaypanos 12y ago
  LINQ
• notastartup 12y ago
  I guess it's now easier to create cross platform desktop apps using Visual Studio 2015? Does this mean I can finally make iOS apps on Windows? I'm downloading the 2015 preview to try it out.
• hrasyid 12y ago
  Good news :) For Microsoft though, doesn't this mean (ironically) loss of business, because many people will no longer have a reason to run Windows?
• maerF0x0 12y ago
  Hacker news karma jackpot! ~200 karma to 1800 in one link.
• foolinaround 12y ago
  How does this impact the future growth and adoption of mono as an alternative open-source platform?
• kelvin0 12y ago
  Read the article, looking for the download link to the open sourced code. Is is bundled with the VS2015 preview (4.4GB iso)? If not, were and how can we access the code?
  • nullymcnull 12y ago
    .NET: https://github.com/dotnet https://github.com/dotnet ASP.NET + related stuff: https://github.com/aspnet https://github.com/aspnet
• anta40 12y ago
  "the full server-side .NET stack and expanding .NET to run on the Linux and Mac OS platforms" so that means I can write GUI-based desktop apps for Linux in C#, right? cool :D
  • seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    There is mono.cairo, at least.
• elliotec 12y ago
  Finally. Do you think this will significantly hurt the virtual machine industry?
  • fapjacks 12y ago
    My instinct is that people at MS are freaking out right now about Docker specifically. It's hard to say which decisions were "coaxed" into place with Bill Gates advising the new CEO, and which are attempts to strategically react to the negative mindshare of Azure against everything going Docker. First we have the "news" that MS is doing some mystery thing with Docker (which really must be a matter of semantics, because for an OS which didn't have symbolic links until 2008, I can't imagine it's possible to bring something like LXC to the Windows kernel), and now this news about Microsoft "open sourcing" a portion of their development tools, from the same company paying TV shows to awkwardly use the phrase "Bing it". If anything, it's just an interesting time to be alive.
    • SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
      > My instinct is that people at MS are freaking out right now about Docker specifically. All, right, why would you say "freaking out" specifically? MS has a habit of adopting good ideas from elsewhere, and I don't think containerisation is any exception. Maybe they see not supporting it as a strategic weakness, but shoring up strategic weaknesses is business as usual for any large company, not "freaking out". Throwing chairs is freaking out. We know that .Net is rolling out containerisation features in 2015, including but not limited to docker integration. Going all in on any tech is an odd way to "freak out about it".
      • fapjacks 12y ago
        Whatever, kid.
• diltonm 12y ago
  I didn't think I'd ever see this happen. Java is my bread and butter but this could be a game changer. Edit: It probably won't be for me but just saying who knows, some developers might prefer C# over Java on Linux and Mac. Too bad Microsoft is 13 years to late for me on this. They had my interest when I was beta testing Visual Studio .NET 2002 but by 2005 when I saw how far Java had come and got a taste of the power and Cadillac nature of Eclipse; it would be tough to turn back now.
• MrBra 12y ago
  It would be a great moment to restart the Iron Ruby project http://ironruby.net/ http://ironruby.net/
• Rapzid 12y ago
  This is fantastic! I've been waiting for the .net train to pull all the way into the OSS station(as a Linux engineer) :) I wonder if .Net native will also be open sourced.
• delhanty 12y ago
  Does anyone know whether the full-server side .NET stack open sourcing includes C++/CLI? My experience has been that .NET interop with C++ code bases using C++/CLI was much smoother than with PInvoke. It would be if that were cross-platform too.
• tn13 12y ago
  I am not so much enthu about the open source part but more fascinated by the fact that it is cross platform.
• rocky1138 12y ago
  All this reads like great stuff, and as a developer I applaud the work. But, I haven't read anywhere how they intend to make money off this stuff. How does going open source and cross-platform make them money?
  • cjackson27 12y ago
    Azure.
• FiveTimesTheFun 12y ago
  What a day :)
• laveur 12y ago
  Does anyone know if this builds for anything but Windows yet?
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• sorpaas 12y ago
  Thank you Microsoft!
• Illniyar 12y ago
  What happens to mono now? Also its great to have an engineer at the helm of microsoft again.
• stplsd 12y ago
  So that does that means for linux developers like me, who want to start dabble in .NET ecosystem. Where MONO stand in this?
• MrBra 12y ago
  .NET newbie here. Could someone explain me if thanks to this it is currently possible to write GUI multiplatform apps?
  • s_husso 12y ago
    I think it is possible using Mono (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)). More details on platform specific frameworks: http://www.mono-project.com/docs/gui/gui-toolkits/ http://www.mono-project.com/docs/gui/gui-toolkits/
  • alkonaut 12y ago
    It's possible but the windows ui libs like Windows.Forms and WPF won't be included in the core. You have always been able to use monk+Qt and this will likely improve now. See e.g MonoDevelop.
    • MrBra 12y ago
      But isn't Mono supposed to merge with .NET now? So in the end will I be able to use VS to this purpose? Also I am seeing that last version of https://code.google.com/p/qt4dotnet/ https://code.google.com/p/qt4dotnet/ is 4 years old?
      • alkonaut 12y ago
        Not sure what will happen to Mono, I believe they will continue to live side by side, and Mono will include parts of the now released framework source. There are a number of Gui toolkits to choose from, see e.g. http://www.mono-project.com/docs/gui/gui-toolkits/ http://www.mono-project.com/docs/gui/gui-toolkits/ All should work with microsofts framework just like they do with mono.
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• Jacky800 12y ago
  This is a very bad news. .NET and Microsoft must die after apppl.
• Fede_V 12y ago
  I know this won't convince many hardcore Unix people who are used to the command line, but Visual Studio is still an absolutely incredible piece of software, and I really, really wish I could run it under Linux. Even if you are a command line ninja, amazing autocompletion, magical debugging with inspection are pretty wonderful.
  • bad_user 12y ago
    IntelliJ IDEA runs everywhere and is a lot smarter than Visual Studio out of the box. The community edition is not only free of charge, but open-source as well. Visual Studio needs the Resharper plugin by IntelliJ, to be able to call it a modern IDE. It also has really good plugins for many languages, besides Java, like Scala, Python, Ruby, Javascript, PHP, Clojure and Groovy. My colleagues that are doing Ruby development are saying that it's the best IDE for Ruby. Whereas myself, as a Scala developer, I'm saying that it's the best IDE for Scala - the Scala plugin for example is still not as smart as the Java functionality, but has everything you'd expect out of an IDE, like amazing autocompletion and magical debugging with inspection - personally I feel that IntelliJ IDEA for Scala is better than Visual Studio for C# without Resharper. Its only problem is that there's no support for C#. This is because people doing C# are doing it on Windows with Visual Studio, so there wasn't demand. But say that demand increases for cross-platform stuff due to these moves by Microsoft, IntelliJ IDEA will probably gain C# support and if IntelliJ the company is the one that does it, then it's going to be darn good. So don't get me wrong, but for cross-platform stuff alternatives already exist and even if Microsoft releases Visual Studio cross-platform, problem is that it will have serious competition, plus they'll have to poor serious resources into it and frankly I'm not seeing it happening - IntelliJ IDEA is built in Java and runs on the JVM, hate it or love it, for IntelliJ it is easy to port it to other platforms. Visual Studio on the other hand, well, it probably has very Windows-specific guts. So a cross-platform port probably won't happen. But what I'm seeing happening is a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse (hopefully IDEA, since it's my favorite). And from what I understood there are things in project Roslyn that IDE authors could use to jump start the nice stuff, like completion or refactoring support.
    • vorg 12y ago
• tiedemann 12y ago
  Next step is to change all "\" to "/" and make drive letters optional to enable a better cross-platform experience :)
• icc97 12y ago
  This is a good move by Microsoft, but from what I can tell this is only happening because Microsoft no longer has its dominant position. Now that Microsoft has proper competition from Apple and Google it has to start playing nicer. It would have been much more benevolent of them if they were still the monopoly power of 20 years ago. Yay for competition.
  • NicoJuicy 12y ago
    Microsoft still has an absolute monopoly in desktop OS: http://goo.gl/oBY93k http://goo.gl/oBY93k . And microsoft never had a monopoly on mobile (smartphones + dumbphones) So, what exactly has been changed the last 20 years? In my country (Belgium and my work also sells computers / laptops), practicly all laptops / notebooks / desktops are Windows (we have a sister company which is a computer store)...
    • icc97 12y ago
      The mobile OS is the big change. So where as Microsoft still has control of the desktop OS, the desktop OS is a much smaller share of the whole OS market. I'm coincidentally in Belgium too :) Any chance you work for CoolBlue then?
      • NicoJuicy 12y ago
        No, i work for an smb in Belgium andere freelance 2. You work for coolblue perhaps?
• SonicSoul 12y ago
  The dream of writing c# on a mac without having to fire up a VM is so so close :)) good work MS!
• jpetersonmn 12y ago
  Is there going to be a Visual Studio for the mac? I write a lot of vb.net utilities in Windows for my day job. It would be awesome if I could work on that stuff natively on my MacBook.
• BloatControl 12y ago
  So here is a 700+ comments thread about MS products without one single occurance of the word that is associated most with anything MS: bloat. We have a serious problem with generations of so called software engineers growing up with the perception that this kind of code flatulence is ok to be released to the world. We need more programmers with real knowledge to solve the problems the world has today. These really good guys feel offended by such bloated systems and like minimal, efficient solutions. MS has lost the ability to attract these elite programmers forever and it is today a propagator of an anti-concept of software and software development. Already too many people are not seeing the obvious. They believe MS produces acceptable operating systems, while anybody with real knowledge can only laugh about these caricatures of computing systems - this is doing so much harm to the whole IT world and therefor to the real world. Bloat, bloat, bloat. Incredible. We must actively prepare to not let this illness float into the world of elegant, slick and efficient open source products. This is a dangerous bloat attack against the world of free thinking - be prepared to fight the invasion of miriads of dumb zombies! Neanderthalers are still out there, many of them, to fight the evolution of homo sapiens sapiens.
  • calferreira 12y ago
    Of course there's some bloat, but this makes our lives easier every day. Developers now can focus more on solutions and less on code.. The wheel was already invented a long time ago, don't you think ? Please tell us which slick and efficient open source products do you use.
  • gfodor 12y ago
    I hate the term bloat. It's unquantifiable and is always inevitably in the eye of the beholder. It's a trick meant to make people think there is some objective measure being discussed, but in fact it is just a subjective 'gut feeling', that tends to be 'I don't like this software.' I'd suggest if you want to criticize this release, you do so on a specific basis. You're generalizing not just about bloat (which is a relatively meaningless term) but also Microsoft itself. If you feel the .NET framework is bloated, then be specific. What does MS's operating systems have to do with the release of the .NET CLR and frameworks? These are two completely different pieces of work.
• FrankenPC 12y ago
  Does this mean WPF will be made available on Linux and Mac desktops?
• jitbit 12y ago
  I'm starting to like MS without Ballmer (no offence Steve)
• dda 12y ago
  Is is the clear yet when Microsoft will deliver .NET for Linux?
• HelloNurse 12y ago
  I'll believe in cross-platform .Net when Microsoft releases Sharepoint for Apache.