ASP.NET Ajax Released 101
darrenkopp writes "Microsoft released their anticipated AJAX framework that integrates with their ASP.NET product .It is a fully supported product (24x7 phone support), but is completely free! They are releasing the source for it as well."
Source? (Score:3, Informative)
Looking at the terms of use page, this is hardly a free license, and it's certainly not opensource unless they've really managed to bury it within the site somewhere.
Yeah, but... (Score:3, Informative)
I had been following this.. (Score:4, Informative)
But What I really like about Microsoft Ajax for
http://www.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.a
Re:Sucks for The Others (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe for those businesses whose core is making an AJAX framework for ASP.NET (are there any such businesses out there?). Those focused on other languages/platforms (PHP, Ruby on Rails, etc) should have no problem competing with this since their target audience probably isn't going to switch from Ruby to C#.
Besides, it's not like this just came out of the blue. The Atlas framework (the in-progress codename for this v1.0 release) has been available for nearly two years in various different preview forms (Microsoft likes to release "Community Technical Previews" (CTPs) rather than "Betas" of bits like this). If your core business is building an AJAX framework for ASP.NET and you didn't see this coming, you have bigger problems than Microsoft trying to enter your market.
Re:Custom controls? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Browser compatibility? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Source? (Score:5, Informative)
The "source available" (notice how carefully I worded that to avoid your assumption that it should be "open source" using your/RMS's definition) is mentioned on Scott Guthrie's blog [asp.net]
Being granted "the right to freely customize/modify the library, as well as to redistribute the derivative versions of the JavaScript library for both commercial and non-commercial purposes" is pretty "open", despite not being released under the GPL. Heck it's almost a BSD license. It's certainly the least restrictive of the MS source licenses, they just haven't submitted it to the OSI for approval (and really, can you blame them?). It was written with the OSD in mind.
Re:Custom controls? (Score:2, Informative)
Another breaking release (Score:3, Informative)
The ASP.NET AJAX validator controls that were part of the RC release have been removed. You must remove the following registration entries for those controls from the section and remove any instances of these controls in your pages.
Oh goodie, let me just go back and do that and undo my previous days work. Apparently there will be a fix in the near future [asp.net], but for now there's a bandaid [msdn.com] available.
Re:I had been following this.. (Score:2, Informative)
If you look at the controls, though, a lot of them aren't really AJAX, calendar control included. It's not making calls to a webservice via XMLHTTPRequest or any such thing - just extending a textbox or button via client-side scripting.
So, I wouldn't call it an abomination, just a misuse of the term AJAX, which I've noticed isn't all that uncommon out there. Companies have to jump on the AJAX bandwagon, after all. ;)
Re:dont bash it before you tried it (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Source? (Score:3, Informative)
So, for the hypothetical situation that you mentioned... You make what kind of change? A change that implements one of your patents? If that's the case, you can't sue them because another part of the license says that in order to contribute to this project you have to give a patent license to anyone who uses the software.. for that patent that you implemented. So you must be talking about a change that isn't implementing one of your patents.. ok. So now, in your hypothetical situation, Microsoft makes a change to the software which violates one of your patents. You want to sue them, fine, you do that. This statement says that any patent licenses you've received from the contributor you're suing (in this case Microsoft) are now void. Which, essentially means, you can't use the software anymore, but if you don't care about that, you can still try to sue Microsoft. Good luck with that.