Microsoft Releases ASP.NET MVC Under the Apache License

mikejuk writes "Microsoft has announced that they are being even more open with their new approach to ASP.NET MVC. It is making ASP.NET MVC, Web API, and Razor open source under an Apache 2 license. The code is hosted on CodePlex using the new Git support ... You can compile and test out the latest version, but if you do have anything to contribute you have to submit it for Microsoft's approval." To get code upstream Microsoft has to approve (pretty typical), but the git branch is supposedly tracking the latest internal release candidate branch (a bit better than Google does with Android, even). Things seem to have changed quite a bit since the days of Shared Source (tm).

Is Microsoft still evil?

[gman003]

All evidence points to Microsoft no longer being "evil". At worst, maybe jerks, but not evil:

Internet Explorer is following standards about as well as everyone else
Windows is no longer a horrible, bug-ridden mess - the main complaints are "it's too similar to the last one, no need to upgrade" and "they're changing the interface too much AND I DON'T LIKE IT"
The 360 is fairly open, by console standards, even with "official" homebrew via XNA (you need to buy a license, but it's not a $100,000 developer's license)
They've been submitting a lot of code to open-source, using *actual* open-source licenses
Their stuff works well withttp://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/03/28/142228/microsoft-releases-aspnet-mvc-under-the-apache-license#h virtualization under Linux, and their VM will run Linux (face it, the Old MS would have made it near-impossible to run Windows within Linux)

Now, they're still far from my favorite company, but I for one am willing to reclassify them from "lawful evil" to "lawful neutral".

New Approach

[Martz]

Microsoft now seem to have a really good grasp on how to deal with free software. They know they need to get developers and administrators to incorporate or use their products in part, rather than use the defacto standard free software, and that means they need to be interoperable and compatible.

A conference I attended for CakePHP in Manchester 2011 was sponsored by Microsoft, they provided a 3 course meal and contributed towards the bar tab for attendees.

They know the way to a geeks heart - food and beer - and they also know that they need to get free software communities to build support for Microsoft platforms as well as the free platforms. For example the CakePHP community, Microsoft went to great efforts to ensure that the MSSQL database abstraction class was improved by the core developers to better support the MS platform. Now I can at least choose between MySQL and MSSQL, and there's a chance I'd buy and license it for a particular application.

This attitude from Microsoft isn't new, but I don't really see them being able to execute the "extinguish" part of their normal plan on GPL/BSD/MIT licensed software. Instead I can see them at grassroots level trying to make their platform relevant and make sure people can hook into it, but they get left on the sidelines.

Re:Is Microsoft still evil?

[jbernardo]

Yes they are. As long as they are using NDAs and patent trolling to extort money from companies using open source, they are evil. They might seem less evil in this particular point - but they are still the same microsoft we all learned to hate. At least those of us that did do business with them, or know some company who did, like sendo...

Re:Two Groups

[craigtp]

It's not just developers and managers as groups. Remember, that these days Microsoft is a huge organisation and is full of many different divisions. There's Windows, Office, XBox, Windows Phone etc. amongst many others.

The guys that are responsible for this move are the "Web Dev Div", who are a sub-group within the "Developer Division".

It contains many people, including guys like Scott Guthrie [wikipedia.org], Scott Hanselman [hanselman.com], Phil Haack [haacked.com] (who recently left to join GitHub) etc., who have always done things that don't seem very Microsoft-like, like releasing ASP.NET MVC as an open-source product [asp.net] - albeit one that didn't accept outside contributions - back in 2009 along with such moves as bundling things like the open source jQuery library with Visual Studio and openly committing improvements [stephenwalther.com] back to the core project without trying the usual embrace, extend, extinguish tactics. [jquery.com]

Within certain parts of Microsoft, they can, have done, and are continuing to do some very interesting, worthwhile and generally community-friendly (and not-so-evil) work.

Re:Visual Studio is decent, nothing more

[Literaphile]

Let me get this straight - you don't like PHP but you code with Ruby? You and I definitely disagree on the definition of "abomination".