Is Microsoft in a identity-crisis or something??

[eragon100]

http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/04/microsoft-open-sources-aspnet.html

??

WTF??

Anyone got any idea why they do this? :confused:

[albinootje]

http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/04/microsoft-open-sources-aspnet.html

It's only about a part of .AspNet I've read, and perhaps they have chosen this moment after all the critics about the deal with Novell, and especially the courtcase against TomTom recently.
And perhaps MS is bothered by all the trouble they have with the EU commission.
It's also all about image (re)building and stock prices I bet ;-)

[OutOfReach]

What's wrong with that?

[billgoldberg]

What's wrong with that?

I agree.

They finally open source some of their technology, that's a good thing.

[BuffaloX]

Erh. maybe they open source some stuff they have patented,
Then if you use it, they can claim license fees for using the patents?

[billgoldberg]

It's only about a part of .AspNet I've read, and perhaps they have chosen this moment after all the critics about the deal with Novell, and especially the courtcase against TomTom recently.
And perhaps MS is bothered by all the trouble they have with the EU commission.
It's also all about image (re)building and stock prices I bet ;-)

Could be, still doesn't change the fact it's a good thing MS is doing.

ps: Net als gistern terug tot een gat in de nacht op UF jongen. lol :p

[Mehall]

It's actually incredibly dumb for them.

After all the FUD they have spread about FOSS, they make something FOSS?

That will open it up to more people, even if it is a dev end thing they have Open Sourced.

[SomeGuyDude]

It's actually incredibly dumb for them.

After all the FUD they have spread about FOSS, they make something FOSS?

That will open it up to more people, even if it is a dev end thing they have Open Sourced.

MS can't win, can they? They throw dirt on FOSS and they get hated, they make ASP open source and it's "dumb".

[Simian Man]

I'm sure they are doing it for practical purposes. Maybe they want to get more developers to become experts with this technology. Maybe it is to simplify working with Mono. I don't know this technology, so I don't know what their reasoning is.

Either way it isn't marketing because most people don't even know what ASP.NET is and even fewer give a crap about its licensing model. And it isn't some kind of trick. This won't really change anything.

[gnomeuser]

Erh. maybe they open source some stuff they have patented,
Then if you use it, they can claim license fees for using the patents?

The MS-PL license under which this is released gives a patent grant.



(B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative works of the contribution in the software.


The license itself is very similar to the MIT X11 license but with a full patent grant as well.

As a sidenote Miguel de Icaza stated once that he would love to relicense Mono under the MS-PL due to this inclusion of a patent grant but feared that Mono FUDers would use the inclusion of the Microsoft reference in the license name as fodder for their quest.

[cardinals_fan]

This is good news in my book.

[billgoldberg]

This won't really change anything.

I don't know about that.

Maybe they have seen the light.

Logic dictates that since the MS user base is way bigger than linux's one, they could even gain more from their community than the open source OSs themselves.

It's a smart moves as it could make ASP.net more widely used.

[albinootje]

Could be, still doesn't change the fact it's a good thing MS is doing.

Hmmm. Many years ago Microsoft produced some obscure media player (freely downloadable) for Linux. I forgot the name of it.
I think the ways of the brain of the giant company called MS are sometimes .. a bit curious
I don't trust them, except for the msttcorefonts package :)


ps: Net als gistern terug tot een gat in de nacht op UF jongen. lol :p

hehe, ik ben ook nog aan het werk, lekker rustig zo laat, en m'n kat is nog niet terug van nachtelijke wandelingen. :)

[Sealbhach]

Well, since it's a "web programming option", maybe they're thinking open sourcing it is worth it for the better security after all the criticism IE has attracted over security.


.

[billgoldberg]

Hmmm. Many years ago Microsoft produced some obscure media player (freely downloadable) for Linux. I forgot the name of it.
I think the ways of the brain of the giant company called MS are sometimes .. a bit curious
I don't trust them, except for the msttcorefonts package :)


Will have to look into that one. Never heard of it.


hehe, ik ben ook nog aan het werk, lekker rustig zo laat, en m'n kat is nog niet terug van nachtelijke wandelingen. :)

Idem, maar vervang werk door bier. :p

[gnomeuser]

It's only about a part of .AspNet I've read, and perhaps they have chosen this moment after all the critics about the deal with Novell, and especially the courtcase against TomTom recently.
And perhaps MS is bothered by all the trouble they have with the EU commission.
It's also all about image (re)building and stock prices I bet ;-)

You forget that one cannot just open source this overnight. They have to run it through legal to ensure that they actually have the rights for this. The decision has to be made. This clearly has been in the works for a long time, so it is not a mere reaction to buffer fallout of their lawsuit which happened a few weeks ago.

Additionally the decision to do these two things come from different department and most people forget just how big Microsoft is. There isn't a great masterplan and everything isn't coordinated to the slightest detail, some parts of Microsoft deal with some things, others with others and if there is no obvious need then they likely do not talk to each other.

Microsoft is doing better these days dealing with Free Software, they donate money to projects relevant to them such as Apache. They open parts of their own code and have their licenses certified as OSI approved (which required changes, which Microsoft made without complaining). They open their document standard (sure they got flak for the quality but they opened it because they understood the value of doing, something they never really did before), they also released documentation on older formats and protocols to allow for improved interoperability. They even have their own SourceForge like portal called CodePlex now and they ship open source code in their Visual Studio product (JQuery I believe.. I forget the name), this is big news, it means that during the lifetime of that product they have commited to supporting open code and put their ressources behind it.

Yes in the same time they also filed a lawsuit and Ballmer mouthed off a bit. Ballmer always has and it is sadly not likely to change. He did so before any deal with Novell and he will continue till the day he dies I am afraid. My prediction is that his viewpoint will leave him to be obsoleted due to being bad for business but not for a long while.

Just don't expect to change a structure as big as Microsoft in the space of a few years, they will change slowly as they see the benefit in doing things our way and some parts will be won over faster than others. It is not an agile company in this regard but we should praise them when they do good and tell them they are wrong when that is the case.

[albinootje]

Will have to look into that one. Never heard of it.

I remembered the name now (Netshow), see here, it was in 1997 :
http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/apps/netshow_linux.html

And it's still available for FreeBSD (ports)
http://www.freshports.org/multimedia/netshow/


Idem, maar vervang werk door bier. :p
Geniet ervan ;-)

[billgoldberg]

Additionally the decision to do these two things come from different department and most people forget just how big Microsoft is. There isn't a great masterplan and everything isn't coordinated to the slightest detail, some parts of Microsoft deal with some things, others with others and if there is no obvious need then they likely do not talk to each other.



You can bet your *** the choice to make something open source goes straight to the top of MS.

[albinootje]

Just don't expect to change a structure as big as Microsoft in the space of a few years, they will change slowly as they see the benefit in doing things our way and some parts will be won over faster than others. It is not an agile company in this regard but we should praise them when they do good and tell them they are wrong when that is the case.

Yes, agreed, sounds very likely to be the case.
Let's hope for the best (as in fair competition amongst others) for the future.

[Sealbhach]

You can bet your *** the choice to make something open source goes straight to the top of MS.

Definitely. A policy change like that would have to be signed off at the highest level.


.

[billgoldberg]

I remembered the name now (Netshow), see here, it was in 1997 :
http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/apps/netshow_linux.html

And it's still available for FreeBSD (ports)
http://www.freshports.org/multimedia/netshow/



The BSD page says this:

"This is the Microsoft NetShow video stream player for Linux.
It will run under FreeBSD's linux emulation libraries, provided
that you have built and installed the linux_lib port"

Maybe it's still possible to run it on Linux.

Will give it a shot tomorrow when I get back from the Tour of Flanders.

[gnomeuser]

Definitely. A policy change like that would have to be signed off at the highest level.


.

Assuming it's a policy change, which it is not. This is not the first time Microsoft has open sourced some of their code.

Aside that your view of organizational structuring for something as huge as Microsoft is overly simplistic and does not corrolate with reality.

[billgoldberg]

Assuming it's a policy change, which it is not.

Common dude.

It's a policy change.

[gnomeuser]

Yes, agreed, sounds very likely to be the case.
Let's hope for the best (as in fair competition amongst others) for the future.

Over the past many years that have improved a lot, while they still do decidedly evil things occasionally they have started doing really good things as well.

I have great confidence in their ability to embrace change, and I think that if we manage to teach them to path to successful Open Source interaction, we will have done the world a great favor as well as earning an important victory. I am positive to see the changes they have made and continue to make and I do believe they earned a treat for good behavior over all lately.

[Sealbhach]

Aside that your view of organizational structuring for something as huge as Microsoft is overly simplistic and does not corrolate with reality.

Dude, I used to work for them in Dublin. :lolflag:


.

[gnomeuser]

Common dude.

It's a policy change.

No (http://port25.technet.com/), it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Language_Runtime) is (http://www.codeplex.com/) not (http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/)

Now stop making it sound it is some new and dangerous thing, they have Open Sourced quite a lot of code, most importantly probably the DLR and parts of the Silverlight stack. Aside that they standardize things under ECMA now and have done so for a while. It is not a big huge new thing, they are going about business as usual and when it makes sense to them they will open code. This is a good thing but not by any standard a policy change.

[billgoldberg]

No (http://port25.technet.com/), it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Language_Runtime) is (http://www.codeplex.com/) not (http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/)

Now stop making it sound it is some new and dangerous thing, they have Open Sourced quite a lot of code, most importantly probably the DLR and parts of the Silverlight stack. Aside that they standardize things under ECMA now and have done so for a while. It is not a big huge new thing, they are going about business as usual and when it makes sense to them they will open code. This is a good thing but not by any standard a policy change.

I think we aren't understanding each other.

For me when a project changes course, as ASP.net has, that is changing policy.

[CyberMando]

Microsoft has repeatedly used a strategy of "adopt and enhance" any time that something starts to impinge on them. The "enhancement" always turns out to be incompatible and MS will have again hooked a number of people into their system.

[MikeTheC]

I think Microsoft is in an identity crisis, and they have been since the early-mid 2000s with Apple's switcher and Mac & PC ad campaigns. This is evidenced by their own ad campaigns, and especially in the latest one where they really have nothing to say, other than to knock Apple on their price.

To me, their ad just screams of being like a petulant little child who wants everything but doesn't actually want to have to pay for it.

[Firestem4]

The MS-PL license under which this is released gives a patent grant.



The license itself is very similar to the MIT X11 license but with a full patent grant as well.

As a sidenote Miguel de Icaza stated once that he would love to relicense Mono under the MS-PL due to this inclusion of a patent grant but feared that Mono FUDers would use the inclusion of the Microsoft reference in the license name as fodder for their quest.

I'm not very educated with the way the patent system works, Could someone explain to me what this Patent Grant entails?

[gnomeuser]

I'm not very educated with the way the patent system works, Could someone explain to me what this Patent Grant entails?

It depends on the patent grant in question for the MS-PL license it states:



Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative works of the contribution in the software.


Which basically means that any contributor who holds a patent on code under this license gives you a grant to use that patent anywhere in the world, for free to do whatever you like (you could even sell the software on for profit and not be in volation of the patent or derive your own work from this code and they still can't sue you).

Now remember this is the Microsoft lawyers who dreamed up this license and Microsoft have an increasing amount of code going out under this license. It is a very encouraging move as it shows they are willing to deal with patents on terms that are acceptable to the FLOSS world.