Top 25 Hottest Open-Source Projects at Microsoft Codeplex

willdavid writes "Via CNet, a link to a blog post with the top 25 most active open-source projects on Microsoft's Codeplex site. As the CNet blogger notes, 'Codeplex is interesting to me for several reasons, but primarily because it demonstrates something that I've argued for many years now: open source on the Windows platform is a huge opportunity for Microsoft. It is something for the company to embrace, not despise.'"

Open source projects?

One things is for sure - they all rely on proprietary Microsoft produts (.Net, sharepoint, SQL server, etc) to run. They're not particularly useful to the Open Source community, just the Microsoft community. (In Debian, they would sit in the non-free repositorty).

open source on the Windows platform is a huge opportunity for Microsoft. It is something for the company to embrace, not despise.'"

Some open source is good for MS - the sort of not particularly open software that relies on MS's OS & libs. Any software that can be easily ported to another platform is a threat.

Oh - and Open Source? Pah-lease. A license that governs USE [microsoft.com] of the software sounds neither permissive nor open:

Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL)

This license governs use of the accompanying software. If you use the software, you accept this license. If you do not accept the license, do not use the software.

Re:Open source projects?

Exactly what restrictions are they putting on your use of it?

The issue is not that it restricts use, but that it's triggered by use. The GPL does not apply to people who USE GPL software, only to people who redistribute it; a major principle of F/OSS is that no legal encumberance should be placed on users at any time, to use a piece of software in any manner for which it may be suitable.

Re:Open source projects?

The issue is not that it restricts use, but that it's triggered by use. The GPL does not apply to people who USE GPL software, only to people who redistribute it...

Spot on; which is why it's so annoying when people insist on using the GPL as an EULA. That's like asking employees to sign a script of Spongebob Squarepants instead of a contract, before they start work --- not only is it completely meaningless and useless, it brands you as someone who doesn't know what you're talking about.

A redistribution license (like the GPLv2) is NOT an EULA. They are totally different things.

Re:Open source projects?

It's probably because of braindead installers that expect an EULA.

I actually filed a bug about this on FileZilla and it was fixed (I think I filed against 2.29 and it was fixed in 2.30).

If it's happening to $YOUR_FAVORITE_FLOSS_PROJECT, then file a bug stating that the installer violates GPL.

Re:Open source projects?

I think the silly MS license has the same sort of logical error in it. It has boilerplate language that says it applies to use, but it places no restrictions on use. If it's not free, then GTK+ is not free.

There is a difference. You get GPL/LGPL "EULA" because of brain-dead installers that assume there must be EULA, and/or people who write the install scripts. However, the license itself explicitly states that you do *not* need to accept it merely to use the software. Microsoft's "license" explicitly states exactly the opposite. And while MS-PL does not actually restrict use, MS-LPL absolutely does. Therefore, MS-PL is a trojan horse: it's purpose is to make people accept the idea that controlling how the supposedly "open source" software is used is ok. I do not believe this is a logic error, as you say. I believe it's intentional.

Some licenses must be used under Windows.

More about the issue in my parent post: There is more than one license.

The Microsoft Limited Permissive License (Ms-LPL) [microsoft.com] says, in part: "(F) Platform Limitation- The licenses granted in sections 2(A) & 2(B) extend only to the software or derivative works that you create that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product."

Be very, very careful. If some of the Ms-LPL code is mixed with real open source code, there can be a license violation.

Microsoft licenses are ALREADY causing confusion.

Another addition to my parent post: The Microsoft licenses are ALREADY causing confusion and dissension. See the anger and hostility in the discussions below.

The Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL) [microsoft.com] says in the sub-heading: "This license governs use of the accompanying software. If you use the software, you accept this license. If you do not accept the license, do not use the software."

Some of the people commenting in the discussions below are reading only what they believe are the license terms, and not seeing the sub-heading quoted above, which is ANOTHER license term, even though it is not formatted that way.

Again, the license says, "If you USE [my emphasis] the software, you accept this license."

Microsoft's multiple licenses with confusing formatting are already causing harm to the open source community. And Microsoft is just getting started with this.

Re:Open source projects?

Why put the GPL in that box then? Why not put a simple concise message in there stating that "There are no restrictions on the use of this software, only on the distribution. For restrictions on distribution please see the GPL at http://..../ [....]". Then you're making it clear to the person that they aren't restricted in any way from just using the program. A short little message like that sure would be an eye opener to most people who are used to seeing license agreements that are thousands of words long.

Re:Open source projects?

That has nothing to do with the license and everything to do with the installer.

Things you apparently are incapable of thinking about.

1) This only happens if you download the installer. If you download the zip or the source you don't have to agree to jack.
2) This only happens for the windows version, people who use linux just use their package manager.

I don't know why it is so difficult for you to think about these things but perhaps you should push yourself and actually try to understand when a license applied to you and when it doesn't.

I can't believe people still don't get this

Microsoft "permissive license" attempts to control the mere use of the software:

This license governs use of the accompanying software. If you use the software, you accept this license. If you do not accept the license, do not use the software.

So it is neither a "license" nor "permissive". It is unilateral contract, no different than click-through EULA.

In contrast, Free software licenses (BSD, MIT, GPL, etc.) cover only the distribution of the software. You do not need to accept any "license" just to use the software. For example, here the relevant paragraph from GPL:

You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program. Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance. However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so.

So Free software licenses are indeed licenses: i.e. they grant you more rights than what you get by default under copyright law. EULAs, including microsoft's "permissive license" attempt to restrict your rights by controlling how you can use the software.

So it is difficult to see microsoft's "permissive license" as anything but a trojan horse. Especially since it has an uglier brother, the "limited permissive license", which sounds confusingly similar to "permissive license", but adds a completely ridiculous restriction: you can only run the software on windows.

Re:Open source projects?

Have you read the rest of the license? No MS fanboy here, but it is not exactly a draconian piece of legalese.

There are much better ways to attack MS. Try citing the company's track record of failing to observe laws, failing to deliver promised functionality, and failing to promote innovation in their dedicated developer base through patent threats, aggressive devaluation->buy-out tactics, questionable attempts at political influence (open standards in California anyone?)...

Then pose a question like, "Why would an open source developer choose to get into bed with a company like that?"

Just citing the license is a pretty weak argument especially if you have read it.

Regards.

Re:Open source projects?

it seems that all Microsoft "open source" licenses require to run Windows

Please tell me where the word "Windows" even appears in this license. I don't see it. Maybe you should actually read them before you make such comments.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/li censingbasics/permissivelicense.mspx [microsoft.com]

Re:Open source projects?

I think it's pretty obvious. Microsoft wrote their own licenses because they don't want to be at the mercy of the FSF, and their willingness to alter license terms to suit their political agendas. This is the same reason Apple, Sun, Mozilla, Apache, and many others have their own licenses as well.

Re:Open source projects?

Umm... no.

The FSF has no ability to alter the text of existing versions of the GPL. If you want to use only the GPLv1 and no other version, you can say that and the FSF has no way to magically change the license text that you distribute with your code. If you want to say "Version X or later", then you're leaving an opening to the FSF to change things (which might even be a good idea), but including that text or not is your choice.

The creation of a new copyleft license at this point in time is simply not-invented-here syndrome on the part of some corporate lawyers, and the result is license compatibility issues. Any full copyleft license is innately incompatible with any other, and that's caused enough hassle over the last 18 years that there's no reason to do it again now.

Non-copyleft permissive licenses aren't really a problem - the only annoyance is having to read yet another license that's basically equivalent to the X11 license and be sure that that's what it really says.

Besides Ms-PL, others such as GPL, LGPL are used

I know slashdotters loath Ms-PL, but not all of the projects use Ms-PL anyway.
If you had bothered to check the license of the listed projects you'd see that some of them use GPL or LGPL (the only licenses that slashdotters appear to respect).

For example, the PHPExcel [codeplex.com], which allows PHP code to read/write Excel 2007 files, uses LGPL.
Still other projects use custom licenses, like the GoTraxxx [codeplex.com] project.

Microsoft's own projects use MS licenses like Ms-PL and Ms-CL (both pending OSI-certification) but non-MS projects can use any license the devs choose to use.

Fanatical Disclaimer

Hi, I'm twitter. You might now me because I've posted over seven thousand times on Slashdot. While the post above this one might convey a feeling of anger and outrage, it's really just me venting my weird obsession with Microsoft. I haven't used Microsoft products since 1996, and so I wouldn't really know how anything in that environment works at all.

I use terms like "M$" and "Windoze" because I believe that they're clever, and Netcraft confirms that cleverness scores people mod points around here, although it doesn't always work.

As always, I shall ignore people who reply to me to point out I am overreacting or just flapping uselessly in the wind. I find reason and logic to be inconvenient in my quest to convince the world that they must switch to free software or suffer the consequences. I consider myself an "evangelist" and I believe people should put up with me because I Am Right.

But, I urge you to just use your head when reading my posts. Most of what I say can safely be discarded as sophomoric fluff designed to bring out the worse in people. Make your own choices about technology and be smart.

Thanks.

Disburance in the force

Anyone else have a bad feeling abut this?

Control?

There are already many other sites such as sourceforge that have provided Windows OSS for many years.

MS is harly breaking new ground here. So, what is their interest? Control?

Interesting, i've never heard of IronPython before

Wow. [codeplex.com] Cool proyect.

Re:Interesting, i've never heard of IronPython bef

Last i heard, it would only create some sort of bastardized python code that was no longer cross platform.

That's not correct; IronPython runs on Mono or .NET, so it will run on any Mono supported OS as well as Windows.

You may mean that IronPython scripts are not 100% compatible with a CPython implementation. Well, duh! Even different versions of CPython aren't 100% compatible [wikipedia.org]! Jython [jython.org] isn't 100% compatible with CPython. IronPython is fairly [wikipedia.org] compatible with CPython 2.4.4; the list of differences is available here [codeplex.com], so you can avoid them if you ever want to run your code on different Python systems.

The big advantage IronPython has is the integration with .NET. It's trivial to access .NET libraries from IronPython, while CPython doesn't make it easy. I'd expect migration mostly from cPython to IronPython (the biggest issue I had was regex related). If you don't want .NET integration, stay with cPython.

Embrace...

It is something for the company to embrace

First embrace Then extend And last but not least extinguish Technology, the Microsoft way!

Open for Closed

I guess it is no surprise that I didn't see a single one of those "open" projects in the top 25 list run on anything other than MS-Windows. Reading through the list, I see ".NET", and "C#", "Vista", "Excel", "IIS", or "Sharepoint", etc, on just about every single one.

So, it is hard for me to get excited about a collection of projects that only serve to continue to lock people to a single platform.

Re:Open for Closed

What's the point of using open source software if you have to buy some expensive closed source package to use it. Such as SharePoint, Excel, IIS, Vista, etc. Open source only gives you all the advantages of open source if the entire software stack is open source. Otherwise, you can't modify the software, and you aren't free to fix all the bugs that you encounter.

Re:Open for Closed

Have any of you people that constantly bring up Mono as a solution actually ever tried it? Sure, Mono covers a lot of the libraries, but practically every .NET application of significant size steps into some of the libraries that Mono doesn't cover. Very few .NET applications will run on Mono without significant changes to the code.

Very few of the applications which the article refers to have even the slightest chance of running on Mono since they both use libraries that Mono hasn't implemented, and rely on proprietary applications which are not written with .NET and only run on Windows.

The fact of the matter is that Mono will never be a solution unless Microsoft decides to support it. What's perhaps even worse, is that by its mere existence it allows Microsoft and Microsoft fans to make ridiculous claims about being "cross-platform".

Re:Open for Closed

Why do you think Mono needs to run programs written for .NET/Windows? G++ can't compile many programs produced by Visual Studio, but I doubt you think G++ "will never be a solution unless Microsoft decides to support it". Why do you treat Mono differently?

Mono isn't intended to run programs written for .NET/Windows, just like G++ isn't intended to compile working programs that use the Windows API. Mono is great for Linux-only or cross-platform software projects, just like G++ is great for Linux-only or cross-platform software projects. Mono works great for projects that aim for compatibility with it, and G++ works great for projects that aim for compatibility with it.

You're biased against the Common Language Infrastructure because it was created by Microsoft. I understand, because I hate Microsoft too, (I use only Linux on my desktop) but the CLI is a really great idea, and Mono is a really fantastic project. Give it a fair chance! Don't write it off just because it can't do something it's not intended to do!

Re:Open for Closed

At least one of the listed projects, IronPython, runs with no problems on Mono.
I assume the same can be said for much of the other .NET targetted projects.

BTW, mose projects on SourceForge run on Linux ONLY. I guess the reason is to lock people into Linux, according to your dufus logic.

Take that idea and reverse it

Even better, Windows on an Open-source platform.

What's "open" about that source?

So far, I only see projects that require you to use some proprietary MS software to compile, run or use it. It requires you to have .net to compile/run, it requires you to have proprietary MS-SQL database services, or tools that are geared towards the MS flavor of general purpose languages and tools (Ajax, Python...). What's "open" about that?

If anything, it's an attempt to appear open source while at the same time luring people into the unholy MS embrace-extend-eliminte trinity.

If they were serious about "open" projects, they would first of all accept the existance of platform independent standards, adhere to them and move their developers towards using and supporting those standards. So far, all I see is a very cheap trick to lure people into the MS-way.

"Open" and "free" software does neither mean that it doesn't cost anything nor that you can read the code. It means that you are not dependent on a single specific tool to make use of it. If you don't like gcc, take another ANSI compatible compiler and your gcc code will compile. If you don't like Apache, take any other HTTP server and it will understand and supply the same webpages. If you don't like samba... ok, bad example. But I think you get the idea. To be "open" and "free" for software, it must not be limited to a single operating system, a single database system or a single flavor or implementation of some standard, be it SQL, Ajax or Phyton.

Re:What's "open" about that source?

So "Open Source" now means it has to compile and run on all platforms?!?!?

W
T
F
?

Won't accept GPL3

I wrote some C# Visual Studio addins and tried to upload them to codeplex. The only GPL license choice was gpl2, but I put in the comments "don't download this if you don't accept GPL3." Some code-monkey unpublished it because the license didn't match the chosen license - but GPL3 wasn't an option!

So I won't host it there.

Close mindedness.

You all should really look around Codeplex. Look at what MS is doing with Enterprise Library. Look at what they're doing with WCF. Pretend you're software developers, for just a minute, and not OS kooks obsessed with ridiculous ideals. They are doing some cool shit on the technology side of things for developers. If I have to go back to developing in Perl/Python/PHP or even Java I'm going to put a pencil through my eyeball - most of it's just sloppy, primitive shit compared to what MS is doing.

Cry all you want about their OS's - they certainly have room for improvement. Their development tools are top notch. To be honest I do with they'd port an industrial strength CLR env to Linux along with all their class libraries, and Visual Studio/Orcas. It would be a ridiculously large undertaking but it would be god damn sweet to develop with MS tools on other OS's.

I was kind of hoping for an alternate site address

http://developers.developers.developers.developers .msdn.com/ [msdn.com]

Do they have "Feature : Throw a chair" too ?

It might be a good feature to have when a quarrel starts among a project's contributors, they can use this feature to settle things down.

A fact of life

I've long been saying to those goliaths, like Microsoft and IBM, that it's not a battle of who will win - closed source or open source companies, but that both are on a collision course to become one, evolving and taking on the best parts of each. Open source companies and projects need some level of commercialization to fund innovation and development. Closed source companies need to open up more to be trusted and stay relevant in today's fast moving market.

I work for an open source company, Hyperic http://www.hyperic.com/ [hyperic.com], and we make systems management software. Early on Hyperic embraced the fact that there is a demand to manage Microsoft techonologies, and we built our open source software to do just that (in addition to everything else we manage) - and not with some archane NRPE remote-watered-down mechanism. Natively against Microsoft's APIs - WMI. So we work with them.

True, their open source labs with channel25 and their codeplex efforts are very much behind the rest of the company. They are relatively new compared to the rest of Microsoft, and there's a lot of ballast to turn that steamship around. But it is making some inroads, and open conversation and criticism is getting attention. These companies have to listen or become irrelevant. True, Microsoft waited a long time to accept and embrace open source, but they are not that foolish to not make efforts in today's market. And with the amount of usage of Microsoft products out in the market, it would be even more foolish of us not to pay attention.

Re: Microsoft a fact of life?

You might have a (weak) point, but doesn't most of what you are saying boil down to "there are some open source advocates in the belly of the beast that should be encouraged."? That's not really saying much IMO.

Microsoft has such a long history of deception and other bad practices it should make any intelligent person suspicious of their intentions here. It was only a few months ago that they were threatening to sue the open source community. I know it's been said to death, but the bottom line is that if Microsoft as a company really wanted to embrace open source, and work with the open source community, the very first step is open file formats and cross-platform compatibility.

How can anyone trust Microsoft's open source efforts when at the same time they are fighting tooth and nail to eliminate any hope of open file formats and tying all of their open source projects to Windows? I know you are trying to be positive here, but isn't this just a tad naive of you as well? There simply is no reason to believe that this isn't just the same old divide and conquer marketing game from Microsoft. At least not yet.

Windows might have to go open source eventually just to remain relevant, but Microsoft will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to this conclusion, and it will likely take years. At a bare minimum, my expectation is that major structural and managerial changes will have to occur at Microsoft before any of that comes to pass, if it ever does.

Balmer would have to be fired for starters.

Another CodePlex Project

Here is a project an acquaintance of mine recently posted on codeplex because he does not have time to maintain it. It's more or less a Quicksilver clone for windows, with plugin architecture and everything. Pretty cool, hopefully someday someone else will have time to pick up where he left off. It certainly has lots of promise.

http://www.codeplex.com/kodachi/ [codeplex.com]

Embracing developers

Microsoft is so big these days that they have to walk up to developers openly and embrace them. It's the only way to get into a position to get the knife firmly in their back.

I freely admit that I am paranoid about Microsoft's intentions, I am also paranoid about jumping out of planes, both for good reason.

FB? Anyone... Anyone...?

Anyone say fanboy yet?

I didnt read it that hard...

But, i would like to know from someone intimately familiar with the site, what happens if you code something covered by an MS patent (or MS partner patent, etc)?

To me, thats the big deal breaker really. People can whinge all they like about the site, but it is what it says it is "open source". There are plenty of project on sf.net that rely on proprietary api's (even some MS ones!! OMG).

Also, to say MS are doing some "kewl shit" with their enterprise library and having to code php/perl/python or java would require eye-poking, palease get with the program cause thats just saying "hi, im not actually a developer and have no clue about code unless i can use my mouse to write it" - go back to coding in logo chump.

It's not a battle against "open source" ....

It's a battle about how to make money, isn't it?

Microsoft has found a way to make a boatload of money from closed source software. And I know we will hear the arguments of people who say that open source is better -- but tell me why? I am an open source proponent for lots of things, but it has to make sense. Business sense. And I think that fact is lost on a lot of people.

If you can have code reviewed by people be it open source, or closed... how is it different? The open source projects that are best, are the ones that have the most involvement in them. Here's a good case in point -- phpBB which is by far the best open source forum software, has been surpassed by Invision Power Board, and vBulletin in features, speed, and fit and finish. But why? phpBB is open source! It's because not as many people are dedicating as many hours to review the code, check for bugs, and continually update the product. Invision and Jelsoft are doing this on a daily basis, all day long.

Another example is Open Office. From a technical point of view, it's got a lot of developers, but no focus. That's why we have Java in it because technically, it makes sense to have. But that leads to longer load times. There's no central cohesion on the project it seems.

I'm not a MS proponent -- but I understand the logic they have. Windows is closed source and making it open source is in their mind, a bad idea -- because then they will lose money because the technology out there can be used in forked projects to build "a better OS" that remains compatible to Windows. Each progressive version of Windows is essentially being able to build upon the foundation of what there was before, and adding more. (let's not get into a Vista is good/bad debate). If Windows is open sourced, what's to prevent a competent group of folks to recreate the libraries, APIs, etc... and make a COMPATIBLE OS that is actually you know... "better"?

Microsoft's good move would be to see the projects that add value to Windows as a PLATFORM, and support them. Open source or NOT. And they are actively doing this. Just recently Microsoft dropped $150 million to ensure the movement of HD-DVD, because it's a technology that plays to their interests, plays to their benefit, and provides them long term stability in a certain business avenue.

Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet. With Click n' Run, moving "edit the .conf file!" into a GUI, and other streamlining, it can be. But I fear more the next version of Windows which by all accounts, seems to be a *drastic* departure from what there was previously because they are abandoning a lot of legacy code, and replacing compatibility with internalized virtualization layers. Microsoft has a LOT of talented programmers, a lot of smart minds, and a lot of good directions. Some business moves they have made in the past have been questionable or stupid. Some products they have released are just piss poor. But cohesively, Microsoft has provided products that are largely decent, and their biggest stopping point is backward compatibility to support older products. They can't "reinvent" the Windows wheel, like Apple decided to. But with virtualization, they can.

I fear the day that Microsoft makes a "great" OS (by /. standards), because that's the day we lose our choice in the marketplace. Linux is making the right moves, but until there is a single, unified distribution, there's even arguments within the Linux community on which distro is best -- and how can a consumer decide?

Open source projects for Microsoft are a non-issue. Take away the "open source" and just use "Windows enhancing", and then you might be more appropriate. Microsoft doesn't care if the product is open source or not -- they will support what strengthens them, just as Linux should be more actively doing as well. Strengthen the platform as a whole, unify, and provide a clear choice to consumers on an enterprise and home level.

It will only serve us all.

In the meanwhile -- thanks

What's the catch?

Seriously where is the "we own anything you make" clause buried deep in some ULA. Seasoned combatants don't suddenly switch sides so if MS is "embracing" open source then there is surely some angle they are trying to exploit for more M$.

To bad about that list...

More than 60% of the projects listed in that blog are not being maintained, some have not since 2002. It makes me wonder if the blogger just copied the list from some other blog and has called it his/her own just to get some traffic.

My suspicion

They didn't mean to start this project, but at the presentation Steve was curled up in the corner, rocking back and forth muttering "Developers, developers, developers, developers..". They figured the only way to get that many developers was to copy that Linus bloke.

Suspicion and Doubt

Every time I read an article about Microsoft and Open Source, I find most of the comments surrounding the article are incredibly negative and suspicious. Invariably, someone will claim that their only intention in investigating Open Source technology is to eventually kill the market. I take a different view. While I think that Microsoft definitely isn't engaging in Open Source activities to be magnanimous, I do think their their interests are genuine. I believe their intentions are 100% money related. They don't want to engage or participate in the open source community, they want to dominate it, exploit it, and find a way to create a sustainable business model around it. I don't see that as a bad thing and I think those of us who are building businesses around open source solutions should seriously watch what Microsoft does within the model as an example of what we could do. Maybe not a perfect example (it is Microsoft, after all) but an example nonetheless. Just because it's corporate open source doesn't mean it shouldn't be given a chance. And just because it's from Microsoft doesn't mean it's always evil. It just usually is.

In this list we find...

A game of GO. That is soooooo hot!

Regarding tags

The tags about "embrace, extend, extinguish" don't make much sense at all. How do you "extinguish" open source? It isn't even possible. And the whole point of open source software is that you can extend it.

that's not open source

It isn't really open source if you need to buy proprietary software in order to run it.

Maybe Mono can be used to free some of that software, but this is basically just a self-serving effort by Microsoft to get free labor out of people. Some other companies are abusing open source in a similarly sleazy way. You know who you are.

I can't do it

I tried. I looked at the website. I spotted lots of stuff that requires .NET, MS SQL Server, SharePoint etc etc.

I can't do it. Whenever I see these words, my tummy twinges, my eyes wince. My fingers close in a fist.

I can't love Microsoft. No matter how Open Source they become. I'm a hypocrite. I admit it now. I just can't stomach their stuff.

Just seeing the words Apache, MySQL, Perl, Java, Linux soothes my nerves. There's an attitude with the people who develop true Open Source. A culture. An understanding and comradeship.

We NEED a big bad evil adversary. It makes us leaner, faster, more responsive, BETTER. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

I know I know - some advocate that we should work with Microsoft, we shouldn't think of them as evil. But where's the challenge then? They're easy to dislike. Just read the History of Microsoft, and the trail of good but smaller competitors they mugged and left for dead, bleeding in IT Alley.

Oh well, there's enough work out there to keep me Microsoft-free in my environment.

 

Boring projects?

Am I the only one who didn't particularly find any interesting projects in the article?

open source... right

Just the other daz we had our arguments about MS-PL. Now, randomly I selected BlogEngine.NET from that list, and it's MS-PL. So, the top 25 open source projects ? Right. As open source, as MS-PL is. Some said, that MS wanting to get into the FOSS license soup is to blur and mix the meaning of FOSS, first step of it being calling their stuff open source even before their MS-PL being approved. Call them free software, or software developed under the PL, but calling them open source is a bit edgy.
 

open source windows ..

open source windows .. "open source on the Windows platform is a huge opportunity for Microsoft"

yea, once you have moved your "open source" project to Windows, you then have to 'license' the proprietary codecs from Redmond, not so open is it then. Of course Microsofts definition of "open" is different from everyone elses.

"AJAX Control Toolkit .. built on the Microsoft AJAX Library and ASP.NET"

"IronPython - a new implementation of the Python programming language on the .NET Framework"

'nuff said ...

Open Source definition ..

A good article about Open Source Definition [groklaw.net] on Groklaw .. quote:

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor.
For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

The new #1 "open source" program for M$

I release the following code under the Ms-LPL license:

#include <bugs>

int main(int,char**)
{
      Vista::Core v=new Vista::Core();
      v.installDRMHooks(Vista::System::Slowdowns::p0_05) ;
      v.launchAnnoyingRandomPopups();
      v.setTimeBeforeHang(10);
      v.tryToRun();
      return 1; // should never reach here
}

Hmmmm, I hope that by using their license they'll not sue me for patent infringement...

huge opportunity for the developers

to learn how MS will use them and leave them left in the desert when the next shiny object shows up on their periphery

ms has the attention span of dog, and they care about "outside entities" like a dog cares about a bone.

Re:How appropriate

That joke sucks every single time.

Not when I see the curiously intriguing 'Microsoft' and 'Open Source' in the same article. Overriding my temptation to skip the article I force myself to read the post, my bullshit/FUD detectors engaged, only to be rewarded with 'Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.'. It was quite an emotional roller coaster. An anti-climatic ending rivaled only Fable.

Re:How appropriate

do you REALLY think there could be anything interesting in a story which tried to sell the idea that Microsoft should embrace open source software on its platform? WTF are you smoking if you do cause I WANT SOME OF THAT SHIT.

I'm in THAT kind of mood right now so I'll say it, What kind of moron would even think Microsoft would accept open source on its platform for any other reason but to eventually kill it? I suppose, there is alot of evidence that shows their developers suck at finding new ideas and if Microsoft could sucker their 3rd party developers into posting code that Microsoft could take, hide, and make profits from( sucker license ) then maybe I could see them wanting this. But it ain't the open source we all know so is it really open source? IMO, no.

LoB

Re:How appropriate

Yes, we get it. Hahaha.

Slashdot has a funny bit of text when there are no comments to load, and sometimes it strikes you as humorously appropriate. Enjoy the moment, realize that this happens all the time, and proceed normally, commenting on the article, if at all.

Trust us, it's not clever, and the comments will come soon enough. We don't need filler comments in the mean time.

Re:Fixed

Mod "-1, Apocalypse Preacher".

Re:Fixed

Mod +1 Funny

Re:Microsoft: Shared Source

You're talking like you've been living under a rock for the past 25 years.