Am I the only one that has noticed a disturbing trend going on with the .net open source projects? Instead of them being supported by developer community, Microsoft is hiring the developers that created them like they are going out of style.
Sure, at the moment it looks like it could be a good thing, but in the end is the source code being owned by Microsoft or will they still be truly open source?
It first started out out with Jon Lam with his Ruby port to .net. Then Phil Haack with SubText and finally Rob Conery with SubSonic.
I guess I find it a bit ironic that these Open Source developers would have no problem drinking the kool-aid so easily. Don’t get me wrong I think its great that they are working at Microsoft, they need to make a living.
I put this way, its like a politician who’s a Democratic one day, is now running as a Republican because someone gave them some money. However they are still able to be continue their liberal agenda. Would this not seem a little strange to you?
These are definitely strange times we live in.
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[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt Am I the only one that has noticed a disturbing trend going on with the .net open source projects? … source? It first started out out with Jon Lam with his Ruby port to .net. Then Phil Haack [...]
Who said anything about drinking kool-aid?
The source code for Subtext and Subsonic is not owned by Microsoft. And I will continue to contribute to Subtext. It will remain open source.
The only real worry is that Microsoft keeps me so busy with interesting work that I have less time to contribute. However, that would be an unintended consequence and not a sinister intention.
As for John Lam, that was a case where he voluntarily stopped working on RubyCLR and started working on a new OSS project funded by Microsoft, IronRuby.
As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I think this is indicative of a trend in which Microsoft is starting to see that they need to cooperate with OSS in order to survive long term (my opinion only, not necessarily employer’s position).
I’ve listed several steps they’ve taken that show for the most part, they are warming towards OSS.
I think its great that Microsoft is hiring top guys like yourself and Rob to work on some really cool new features to ASP.net. Working together in the past, I know that they hired the right guy to work on MVC.
My fear is that Microsoft tells all you guys you can continue to work on the projects but your workload will become so heavy that these projects will suffer because the main developers are too busy. This could happen at any job but is this the intention?
I was a bit concerned that the subsonic project is going to suffer a ton now that Microsoft has taken the lead developers. This project specificily has had great success for the .net open source projects and would hate to see it fade away so quickly since its going to be years before we see MVC in its true form.
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