Redmond Developer News | Open Source .NET Projects Getting Cold Shoulder?
Jeff contends that “open source projects are treated as second-class citizens in the Microsoft ecosystem.” He says Microsoft is not only wrong to withhold support from open source projects that contribute to the .NET universe; he believes Microsoft’s fate as a dev tools provider hinges on the company changing its approach.

It’s a point worth discussion. Dev shops worldwide rely on diverse open source tools like DotNetNuke, MbUnit, NAnt, NHibernate and ZedGraph, just to name a few. And yet, for all of Microsoft’s efforts to embrace, welcome and work with the open source community (CodePlex, the IronPython and IronRuby projects, Mono development, etc.), it’s clear that the .NET-aligned, open source developer community isn’t feeling the love from Redmond.

I think there is a change underway with respect to Microsoft’s perception of open source and open source .NET projects. In fact, they’ve been very helpful to MindTouch, www.MindTouch.com, which is developed on .NET and deployed on Linux (Mono). As evidence of Microsoft’s growing enthusiasm for open source I will direct you to www.microsoft.com/OpenSource (you will notice MindTouch prominently featured), the open source lab, and Port25.

It’s an absolute certainty that if Microsoft does not embrace open source they run the risk of becoming irrelevant because it is on open source that innovative development is taking place. Clearly this is due to the prevalence of open source in University CS deptartments. We come up through the University developing using open source technology; of course, we’re going to continue using these tools and platforms into our professional career. Microsoft has already made itself largely irrelevant in the Web 2.0 space. After all, who uses .NET in this space?

I will agree that Microsoft still has a long way to go to improve their involvement and support of open source developers on .NET, but it’s clear there are senior people who are aware of the importance of open source. Also, it’s clear that building open source on .NET can be disadvantageous due to a stigma in some segments and a limited set of projects, libraries, and components to incorporate. However, I expect to see a growing affinity to open source from Microsoft and, unlike some who are sporting tin foil hats, I do not believe this is caused by nefarious machinations.

categories: MindTouch