[HN Gopher] Detailed thoughts on the State of the .NET Foundation
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Detailed thoughts on the State of the .NET Foundation
Author : oaiey
Score : 135 points
Date : 2021-10-17 15:51 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| tpmx wrote:
| I may be an out of touch old-timer but I still find it kinda sad
| and weird that Miguel and Nat, both of them heroes of mine in the
| early 2000s now work for Microsoft.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Haven't Miguel and Nat both based much of their careers around
| supporting Microsoft tech? They started Ximian - a support
| company for an implementation of Microsoft's .NET.
| amyjess wrote:
| Slight correction: Ximian started out as a support company
| for GNOME. They didn't pivot to .NET until later.
| [deleted]
| sneak wrote:
| I think Carmack going to Facebook is the one that got me.
|
| Somehow Rob Pike and Guido at Google didn't, even though they
| are pretty close to Microsoft-equivalent these days.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Isn't Guido working at microsoft now?
| dleslie wrote:
| id Software going to Bethesda.
| [deleted]
| Hokusai wrote:
| Most products are produced by a few corporations,
| monopolies are on the rise, that kills competition and
| variety but it allows to accumulate power to further
| increase control over the markets. That's the reason that
| antimonopoly legislation exists.
| mattl wrote:
| Which is now owned by Microsoft.
| tpmx wrote:
| Google wasn't Microsoft-like when they joined.
| amelius wrote:
| Would you feel better if they worked for Apple?
|
| Microsoft is a much more open company than Apple, just look at
| the immense output of Microsoft Research over the years.
| tpmx wrote:
| Since you specifically ask: I would probably respect them
| more if they had joined Apple. I think it's obvious that the
| bar is noticably higher there.
|
| Of course, this is all based on whether they actually thought
| about it strategically before deciding to go with C#. Perhaps
| they were thinking they'd get larger roles at Microsoft,
| perhaps they didn't think about it all and Microsoft was the
| most direct option due the the C# language choice.
| [deleted]
| schoen wrote:
| On the other hand, Apple ended up finding _more_ success
| with "embrace and extend" than Microsoft did. So much so
| that when you go to most free software conferences, well,
| back when in-person conferences still happened, most of the
| developers are running and writing free software on Apple's
| proprietary operating system.
| [deleted]
| amyjess wrote:
| Miguel and Nat have, ever since the early '00s, been
| enthusiastic supporters of Microsoft technology and have spent
| this century doing little other than enabling Microsoft tech to
| play well with open source.
|
| The takeaways from this are:
|
| 1. This is likely a lifelong dream for them. I'm not
| comfortable with shitting on people's lifelong dreams.
|
| 2. I definitely saw it coming. As soon as I saw Microsoft
| acquired Xamarin and retained both of them, the first thing
| that popped into my head was "this makes perfect sense". You
| can draw a straight line from their early work on Mono to their
| acquihire.
|
| 3. They are _still_ spending their lives enabling Microsoft
| tech to play well with open source; the only difference is that
| Microsoft is now paying them to do it.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I think it's possible to find an effort both noble and
| foolish, which is exactly where I am here. I love that they
| thought they could shift Microsoft in a better direction, and
| _hoped_ that they could succeed; but nevertheless was nearly
| 100% sure that it would never really happen.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| You're nearly 100% certain that enabling Microsoft tech to
| play well with open source would never happen?
|
| ... It's already happened.
|
| And it's the only reason Azure isn't already dead, and that
| Microsoft's market share and stock price haven't cratered.
| jrm4 wrote:
| We are working with very different definitions of "play
| well with open source;" Mine favors the ideals of free
| and open source software and doesn't really care much
| either way what happens to MS.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Do you remember Microsoft of the 90s?
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Loading up a local instance of a user-friendly CMS to
| wget mirror for a static site inside an Ubuntu terminal
| from the Windows store is still a surreal experience.
| tpmx wrote:
| > Miguel and Nat have, ever since the early '00s, been
| enthusiastic supporters of Microsoft technology and have
| spent this century doing little other than enabling Microsoft
| tech to play well with open source.
|
| This seems like obvious Microsoft PR speech to me.
| corpMaverick wrote:
| I looked up to Miguel in the 1990s. But him and his father
| ended up supporting the current president of Mexico. Who is a
| demagogue with kleptomaniac tendencies.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Yeah well the whatever you think of the current president he
| did represent change in a country that has seen presidents
| from the same party for 70, and the president before him too.
| And the ones from the PAN weren't exactly great. At least
| that one seemed to be back by a democratic movement/hope.
| Can't blame them for that when you know the history of the
| country.
| copperx wrote:
| I think it's not smart to look down on someone for their
| political or religious views. There are many many issues in
| play. For example, how do you know he didn't support the
| president because of the change and ideals he represented,
| like many Mexicans did, and not his actual performance?
|
| Check you own biases.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Assuming that you must have an organisation+, the organisation
| should have a clear purpose, ideally just one or very few of them
| so as to avoid conflicts. It must be clear to all involved that,
| if this purpose ceases to be valuable, the _organisation_
| likewise ceases to be valuable and must be wound up. It 's
| amazing how often this is overlooked.
|
| It is obviously not _great news_ if the purpose of the .NET
| Foundation is to control this ecosystem on behalf of Microsoft.
| But, establishing that is better than "Let's continue to be
| vague and hope nobody notices that in practice that's what it's
| for".
|
| + One of the things to like about the IETF is that it isn't an
| organisation. The Internet Society is an organisation, several
| related entities (e.g. the IETF Trust) are organisations, but the
| IETF isn't, it's just an activity - like dancing. Anybody can do
| it, if they want. If the people doing it start doing it
| differently, that can't be wrong, because that's just how they're
| doing it now.
| oaiey wrote:
| In the first comment, Miguel explains the setup of the .NET
| Foundation combining Microsoft and Gnome.
| gnud wrote:
| No, he explains that the structure of the .NET foundation was
| based on the structure of the Gnome Foundation, with
| concessions to Microsoft.
|
| Gnome and the Gnome foundation were not involved. They're just
| the model he used when planning how the .NET foundation should
| work.
| pfortuny wrote:
| From that blob about the foundation:
|
| The Foundation claims independence BUT
|
| "One Director always appointed and controlled by Microsoft".
|
| Thus, to me, they are lying on a basic premise about their
| NATURE. They become worthless by that (I mean the Foundation,
| not the individuals, obviously).
| mastax wrote:
| I think of it like the UN. You may not like the USSR (the
| creators of the UN certainly didn't) but if you don't give
| them a seat at the table the whole endeavor is useless.
| Microsoft is by far the biggest contributor to .NET in
| general, and the .NET foundation projects in particular. No
| organization can purport to have a say over the evolution of
| .NET unless Microsoft has a seat at the table.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| But the .NET Foundation as far as I understand isn't about
| "the evolution of .NET," it's about providing assistance to
| unpaid open source contributors of popular libraries and
| such (which I learned today does _not_ include
| indemnification).
| simion314 wrote:
| The comparison with UN is weird, UN does not have 1 member
| that is super special.
|
| Anyway the issue seems to be that the messaging does not
| match the reality, MS needs to be transparent and very
| clear in this, then projects can decide if they agree with
| the conditions. Java world had from a long time foundations
| that were independent of Sun/Oracle.
| qaq wrote:
| Well they have 5 five permanent members of the UN
| Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United
| Kingdom, and the United States) with veto power ...
| oneplane wrote:
| So they are all one-fifth special then.
| noizejoy wrote:
| One veto is enough to kill a resolution, so it's not
| quite the same as one-fifth
| simion314 wrote:
| It is not the same when in a group just 1 has veto or
| when more have veto, for good or worse the 2 cases are
| completely different. If you think is the same I could
| elaborate but if it would be exactly the same MS could
| share it with 4 others from community right?
| rob_c wrote:
| Yeah, tbh I'd with that Java was more independent then
| there maybe they're wouldn't have been so much of that
| mitigation over android...
|
| I think there is still the fear of something like this
| happening with .net if anyone ships with a modified
| version or reimplements a piece to meet their own needs,
| at least from chatting with my developer friends over
| coffee.
| simion314 wrote:
| >Yeah, tbh I'd with that Java was more independent then
| there maybe they're wouldn't have been so much of that
| mitigation over android...
|
| Wouldn't then Java be already EEE by MS with their Visual
| J++ /J# ? You would have fragmentation in Java like you
| have with JavaScript APIs that can be non standard , or
| work differently in different browsers.
|
| From my memory in the end Google had to pay because they
| really copy pasted code from the original Java source so
| they did not respected the license.
| nuerow wrote:
| > _I think of it like the UN. You may not like the USSR
| (the creators of the UN certainly didn 't) but if you don't
| give them a seat at the table the whole endeavor is
| useless._
|
| What's the point of putting up a foundation if it ends up
| being nothing more than a facade of a single corporation?
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| Unless the vast majority of seats belong to Microsoft,
| you can't say that it's "simply a fascade".
| nuerow wrote:
| > * Unless the vast majority of seats belong to
| Microsoft, you can't say that it's "simply a fascade".*
|
| This assertion is rejected by ReedCoopsey's statement
| regarding the fact that Microsoft reserves its right to
| appoint and control a foundation's director that happens
| to also have the privilege of single-handedly dictating
| and overriding any change.
| chuckee wrote:
| > Main site, first element lists "Independent."
|
| > One Director always appointed and controlled by Microsoft
|
| > Microsoft appointed Director can effectively override "any vote
| to materially change the Foundation's Membership Policy, Director
| Election Policy, Project Governance Policy, or any Intellectual
| Property-related agreements or policies" [..]
|
| > Any change to the Bylaws which attempts to change this requires
| not only a 2/3 vote of the Directors, but also _agreement from
| Microsoft separate from the Microsoft appointed director._
|
| Ha!
| thrower123 wrote:
| The most interesting bit that always comes up with the DotNet
| Foundation is that all the trusted actors who you would expect to
| be associated are so worn out that they don't take much of a
| role, and instead less scrupulous and more power-hungry types
| take their places.
| COGlory wrote:
| I fundamentally do not understand why the .NET foundation exists,
| and what members gain from joining it. Would someone mind
| explaining that?
| danroth27 wrote:
| See https://dotnetfoundation.org/about.
| dmitriid wrote:
| If you follow the link to Miguel de Icaza comment, you'll see
| the original comment that shows that no one knows what it
| actually does.
| sneak wrote:
| It's a front for Microsoft proprietary software money to
| participate in open source communities and ecosystems in an
| effort to gain prominence and control in those cultures, same
| as their purchase of GitHub and NPM.
|
| AFAIK ~all of the people who work there are on the Microsoft
| concentration-camp-money payroll.
| SgtBastard wrote:
| Miguel worked on open-source for decades before joining
| Microsoft. The snide Godwin comment at the end doesn't belong
| on HN.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Among other things, the CLA for .NET projects assigns copyright
| to the foundation (a non-profit) instead of Microsoft and also
| has some similar patent terms to protect people who use those
| projects
| achandlerwhite wrote:
| Not necessarily true. The CLA assigns copyright as outlined
| in the project agreement with the foundation, which does not
| have to use the copyright assignment model. My project used
| the contribution model wherein my contributors and I retain
| copyright.
| oneplane wrote:
| So essentially, this means that the foundation is setup for
| the benefit of companies that would otherwise deem the use of
| open-source software too risky since they cannot be legally
| sure that they will be able to use this software for their
| business.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Well, it also means that you as an open source dev don't
| have to constantly worry about someone challenging your
| copyrights or trademarks. And if they do, you don't have to
| worry about the legal expenses.
| oneplane wrote:
| On the other hand: it's not like a foundation has
| infinite resources either, and as an open source dev I
| don't really worry about copyright or trademark
| challenges (neither constantly nor intermittently). I'm
| not entirely sure how big of an issue this is anyway,
| your comment here is the first time I've actually had to
| do some thinking about it.
|
| Maybe this also depends on how litigious your current
| context of development/living/residence is.
|
| Looking at some individuals that apparently did get into
| some legal stuff: it has almost always turned out fine,
| and when needed the EFF and FSF have been helping plenty.
|
| If legal issues are really a thing, then a foundation
| isn't what we need, but just more money and people for
| the EFF.
| electroly wrote:
| It was mentioned in one of the discussion threads that
| the foundation does _not_ offer legal representation to
| its member projects. It only does so for its own
| director, officers, and employees. This is explicitly
| spelled out in Article V of the foundation 's bylaws:
| https://dotnetfoundation.org/about/bylaws
|
| My understanding is that the legal benefit of being a
| member project is essentially just that they run the CLA
| bot. If you actually get sued you're still on your own.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| In short, if someone wants to pick a fight with an open source
| dev over e.g. copyright, it's much easier (and more of a
| deterrent) if it's an entity like the .NET foundation defending
| the project, instead of the dev having to foot all the bills
| (and time) themselves.
|
| Beyond that, the .NET foundation would, in theory, also be able
| to provide resources for project maintenance (think CI hours)
| and events (funding for conferences/meetups etc.).
|
| (Disclaimer: I am entirely uninvolved, this is what I recall
| from reading the discussions.)
| CameronNemo wrote:
| I'm not 100% either, but IIRC there were different groups
| working with C# back in the day. Microsoft was the largest, but
| least open. I think Xamarin was one of the large open groups
| that was developing for/with C#.
|
| The .NET foundation was supposed to make C# a vendor and
| platform agnostic language from what I understand, giving
| Microsoft and others like Xamarin a seat at the table.
| naranha wrote:
| I'm glad that today there are more alternatives and it is not
| only .NET vs Java for the enterprise segment. Since the 2010s
| NodeJS, Go and Rust emerged and the world would not end for open
| source if .NET or Java went completely closed and many already
| moved on.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| That's the problem with languages managed by big corps
|
| I always found peace with community driven projects
|
| D, Zig, Odin, way more healthily and organic communities
| villasv wrote:
| This is a Chesterton's Fence situation. Suddenly the .NET
| foundation is receiving lots of spotlight on its flaws but one
| needs to understand the historical progression of the
| organization. Miguel speaks this clearly:
|
| > The transition from the old model to the new model was a major
| concession from Microsoft
|
| The current .NET Foundation is an improvement on what existed
| before. Is it independent? Not completely, but .NET is more
| independent than it was. Is it frictionless, transparent,
| trustworthy? Not completely, but .NET is more than it was.
|
| Of course the current discussions show it is now time for the
| next steps and move on from the tradeoffs that brought the
| Foundation into existence. There are many ways to improve and
| their messaging/communication is the must urgent one. But it's
| also important to recognize that the Foundation's organizational
| design flaws are not a "plot", not result of incompetence nor
| malice; it's progress, slow as one would expect from the
| complexity of its goals.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| As a slave any new privilege is better than having less than
| before.
| rob_c wrote:
| Slave to what exactly at this point?
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| To Microsoft. You're basically becoming a slave by joining
| the foundation, agreeing to have them own your projects.
| wolf550e wrote:
| You don't become a slave, but you give up control of the
| project and you basically become a volunteer employee of
| Microsoft. If someone does pay you for your work on that
| project, then it's not so bad. If the project was your
| passion, it's not a good idea.
| achandlerwhite wrote:
| No you don't. They have a contribution model where you
| keep the copyright. I recently had a project accepted
| under those terms.
| ozim wrote:
| If you go this way, why even bother with whole .NET
| ecosystem? It is all Microsoft. It would be easier to go
| with Python/Ruby maybe Java.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Going Java and dealing with Oracle is easier than .NET
| and Microsoft?
| booleandilemma wrote:
| So how is what Microsoft is doing with .NET any different than
| what Google is doing with Go and Oracle with Java?
|
| Is this people unfairly hating on Microsoft for being Microsoft?
|
| Is .NET any less open source than Go or Java (or any other
| technology with corporate backing)?
| [deleted]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > So how is what Microsoft is doing with .NET any different
| than what Google is doing with Go and Oracle with Java
|
| Who said it was?
|
| > Is this people unfairly hating on Microsoft for being
| Microsoft?
|
| I don't think so, and Oracle gets pounded on for everything,
| including what they do with Java, too.
|
| Google may be better with Go, or maybe people are cutting them
| undeserved slack. Not really relevant to the discussion of
| Microsoft and .NET, though, just whataboutism as a distraction.
|
| > Is .NET any less open source than Go or Java
|
| "open source" is not the issue; community process is the issue.
| That .NET is available under an open source licensing model is
| not a subject of any dispute.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Hey, thanks for your answers. I wasn't trying to engage in
| whataboutism, I was trying to find out, as a developer who
| wants to learn a truly community-driven language/technology
| without any corporate overlords, what my options are. I've
| looked into Go, but a part of me feels like I'm trading one
| corporation for another.
|
| The languages I think of as strongly community-driven:
| python, ruby, and javascript, are all dynamically typed, and
| I'm trying to stay with statically typed languages.
| kristoff_it wrote:
| One thing that I've heard being said multiple times towards Redis
| Labs and other companies with an Open Source product, is
| (paraphrasing) "Companies make their products Open Source only
| because it helps massively with adoption, but then they don't
| want to accept the other implications that come from Open Source
| licenses".
|
| This was often said in an accusatory tone by certain cloud
| vendors, with the implication that companies like RL wanted to
| have their cake and eat it too because they were trying to push
| for licenses that would prevent clouds from selling their OSS
| product as a service.
|
| I leave it to others to decide how much that accusation was
| justified or not, but I do find it terribly ironic that now
| Microsoft is essentially faking a proper Open Source governance
| model for what could be considered the same end: make the product
| more popular through Open Source.
| oneplane wrote:
| It feels like it only exists to try and emulate the look and feel
| of a community-driven and community-governed FOSS construction
| while at the same time being in commercial control of Microsoft
| since that it what the value is to them. This makes sense, being
| beholden to shareholders and profit and all that, but not even
| pretending it's just commercial developer advocacy/evangelism
| (which would have been fine - lots of companies do this to
| various degrees of success) is red flags all over.
|
| It feels like they want to 'buy' and 'construct' community, which
| is generally not how those come to be. It's much more like the VB
| and COM days where they just try to convince developers that in
| the land of closed systems they haver the best development
| experience to reach business goals. But in the land of open
| systems, that push doesn't work.
|
| They would have been better off either copying the Apache
| Foundation or the CNCF, or just incubating their stuff in to one
| of them. But the first option would not have come with a
| community, and the second one would be risky since they would
| have to soft-compete with what's already there and they aren't
| all that convincing in their value proposition when you make that
| comparison.
|
| The foundation isn't inherently evil or bad, it just isn't what
| the larger FOSS or OSS communities expect and thus it's not
| getting the same traction and benefits, making the whole exercise
| feel dead in the water and not useful to anyone.
| rob_c wrote:
| I would encourage you to re-read this with the first reply. I
| agree it looks like it's an effort to placate and build a
| favourable image, but I think the intentions are to build
| something more substance beyond this.
| [deleted]
| oaiey wrote:
| Back then I wondered why Miguel never played a role in that
| foundation. This explains this a bit. Also it shows the fear in
| Microsoft about a community switching to a GPL code base (which
| is ridiculous considering that the .NET community with it's
| company black matter devs are the opposite of GPL friendly).
|
| It is also ridiculous considering that .NET runtime development
| would never work with the deep pockets of Microsoft.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| Is .NET bigger than Microsoft, or is Microsoft bigger than .NET?
| That's the real question being asked here.
|
| The philanthropic energies of the open source community are often
| in direct conflict with command-and-control corporate structures
| and even the legal system itself. Pretending like the conflict
| doesn't exist is how these folks got into this mess. Microsoft
| has a chance here to generate a huge amount of goodwill not only
| in the .NET community but also the open source world by choosing
| to relinquish the "company behind the curtain" aspect apparent in
| the Bylaws. Articles and blog posts will be written about what
| happens here. The usual comments of "embrace, extend, extinguish"
| might themselves be extinguished by Microsoft choosing
| philanthropy.
|
| Without the philanthropic energies of projects and maintainers,
| what is the purpose of the Foundation anyway? If .NET as a brand
| is too important to risk tarnishing by people not on Microsoft's
| payroll, then abolish the Foundation altogether.
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