4 ms·

I keep hearing that, as if people are trying to convince themselves. But the fact is that it just doesn't exist out in the wild like its alternatives. What's mo

I keep hearing that, as if people are trying to convince themselves. But the fact is that it just doesn't exist out in the wild like its alternatives. What's more, anybody who thinks Microsoft is embracing open source by doing this is kidding themselves. There is only one motivation behind everything Microsoft does, and it isn't bringing open source philosophy to its products. Hint: That philosophy serves to undermine Microsoft's single motivation. I'm sure this comment -- while more thorough and reasonable -- will also be downvoted into oblivion because of the fanboys in here high on their own dreams. Microsoft is not your friend.

alkonaut 12y ago
> Microsoft is not your friend Nor is google or Oracle. So who is? To put this in perspective you need to look at the alternatives. Getting a free (as in speech) source CLR/BCL/JIT/Compiler and a free (as in beer) IDE is pretty sweet. Sure, you can do python or Node.js, but it's not covering all that you can do now with .NET. Only java/jvm really competes on "everything except high perf" (from enterprise to mobile to cloud etc.). And in the java universe you may end up with Ask toolbar, Eclipse and tears on your keyboard.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > So who is? Linus Torvalds, RMS, Guido van Rossum, and a very long list of other open source contributors who were writing open source code before it was 'hip' or good PR.
  - alkonaut 12y ago
    Those guys do (did) some great things. However, I wasn't asking about who was a cool developer or great OSS personality (Or a crazy person or obnoxius mailing list asshat for that matter :) ) I meant, when it comes to choosing a platform/language/IDE for enterprise dev or mobile/cloud dev, there are lots of options but most of the "big" ones also come from megacorps (Oracle, Google...) What scared people most about .NET is usually the closed nature (will they continue to develop it? will they charge more tomorrow?) and the fact that it only runs on windows which makes it more expensive. When it's open sourced and available for other platforms, it's no worse than the alternatives in that respect.
    - tkubacki 12y ago
      I think people didn't trust MS because of Android patent extortion fees (which they still do BTW) and Mono was covered only partially by patent promise. I still don't know if every part of Mono is "patent promise" covered (by MS). I don't believe MS would sue some random ISV but let's assume Google today forks Mono - will this be safe for them to use ?

alkonaut 12y ago

> Microsoft is not your friend Nor is google or Oracle. So who is? To put this in perspective you need to look at the alternatives. Getting a free (as in speech) source CLR/BCL/JIT/Compiler and a free (as in beer) IDE is pretty sweet. Sure, you can do python or Node.js, but it's not covering all that you can do now with .NET. Only java/jvm really competes on "everything except high perf" (from enterprise to mobile to cloud etc.). And in the java universe you may end up with Ask toolbar, Eclipse and tears on your keyboard.

jacquesm 12y ago
> So who is? Linus Torvalds, RMS, Guido van Rossum, and a very long list of other open source contributors who were writing open source code before it was 'hip' or good PR.
- alkonaut 12y ago
  Those guys do (did) some great things. However, I wasn't asking about who was a cool developer or great OSS personality (Or a crazy person or obnoxius mailing list asshat for that matter :) ) I meant, when it comes to choosing a platform/language/IDE for enterprise dev or mobile/cloud dev, there are lots of options but most of the "big" ones also come from megacorps (Oracle, Google...) What scared people most about .NET is usually the closed nature (will they continue to develop it? will they charge more tomorrow?) and the fact that it only runs on windows which makes it more expensive. When it's open sourced and available for other platforms, it's no worse than the alternatives in that respect.
  - tkubacki 12y ago
    I think people didn't trust MS because of Android patent extortion fees (which they still do BTW) and Mono was covered only partially by patent promise. I still don't know if every part of Mono is "patent promise" covered (by MS). I don't believe MS would sue some random ISV but let's assume Google today forks Mono - will this be safe for them to use ?