Confirmed: Microsoft Says It Will Open Source VB 6 205
msmoriarty writes "Microsoft told a group of MVPs today at Tech-Ed that it plans to take Visual Basic 6 open source and will release the source code on CodePlex. A source at the event said that Microsoft is planning to release only the VB6 language on codeplex – not Visual Studio or related tools." Update: 05/20 02:24 GMT by T : Alas, too good to be true. msmoriarty writes with an apologetic retraction: "We got it wrong — Microsoft denied and went back to our source and they pulled confirmation. Our apologies."
Re:And we care why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, because at least one person will find this useful? Open-sourcing a previously closed product can only be a good thing for the community and FOSS, regardless of whether it's Microsoft or whether you personally believe it's useful. It's honestly something that Microsoft needs to be doing more often.
A Decade or so Too late... (Score:4, Insightful)
If VB6 had been some kind of open standard back then, another company would have come along and basically said "Don't panic everyone, your huge investments in VB6 are safe. We are releasing OpenVB Studio and will continue to improve the language.". That would have been a disaster for Microsoft of course.
OMG! (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously? News articles where tweets are being used as a primary source?
That's it, I'm giving up on Slashdot. It's jumped the shark.