Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft : .NET Development, Dynamic Languages

Microsoft to Open Source the .NET Micro Framework

Peter Galli — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:16:00 GMT

I have great news to announce. Today, at the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference (PDC) here in Los Angeles, we announced not only the release of version 4.0 of the.NET Micro Framework, but also that we are open sourcing the product and making it available under the Apache 2.0 license, which is already being used by the community within the embedded space.

The .NET Micro Framework,a development and execution environment for resource-constrained devices, was initially developed inside the Microsoft Startup Business Accelerator, but recently moved to the Developer Division so as to be more closely aligned with the overall direction of Microsoft development efforts.

The result of this is that the .NET Micro Framework has become a seamless development experience, bringing a single programming model and tool chain for the breadth of developer solutions, all the way from small intelligent devices, to servers and the cloud. There are also no more time-limited versions.

Including the source code for almost all of the product also ensures that developers now also get access to the Base Class Libraries that were implemented for .NET Micro Framework and the CLR code itself.

However, both the TCP/IP stack and Cryptography libraries are not included in the source code. Program Manager Colin Miller told me this was because the TCP/IP stack is third party software that Microsoft licenses from EBSNet, so we do not have the rights to distribute that source code. If someone needs to access the source code for the TCP/IP stack, they can contact EBSNet directly.

As for the Cyptography libraries, they are not included in source code because they are used outside of the scope of the .NET Micro Framework. Customers who need to have access to the code in the cryptography functions will find that these libraries can be replaced, Miller said.

I asked Miller what the future plans for the .Net Micro Framework were, and he made clear that Microsoft intends to remain actively involved in its ongoing development, working alongside the community. While the license will allow customers to take the code and make specialized versions to fit their needs, customers told us they wanted Microsoft to stay involved to avoid any possible fragmentation of the platform.

"As such, we are planning on establishing a core technology team that is made up of both Microsoft and non-Microsoft contributors that continues the goals of producing a high quality product for very small devices. This group will act as the gateway to community contributions while, at the same time, Microsoft Developers will continue add functionality and coordinate with the overall .NET team," he said.

Microsoft is also in the process of forming a community of interested and involved members to help shape the future direction of the product. There will be a core technology team that is composed of Microsoft and external partners, and people will be encouraged to propose projects, which will be vetted before they are accepted.

"The site will also support people building extensions that exist alongside the platform rather than being integrated into it, " Miller told me.

The Hidden Technology Decision-Maker

Mark Stone — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

On Monday Microsoft and SD Forum held the 3rd annual Open Source ISV Forum. In a day of interesting talks, I was particularly struck by Larry Augustin's talk. As an emphasizing example of the growth of open source projects partnered with a commercial endeavor, Larry mentioned DotNetNuke.

DotNetNuke is, of course, freely available for download and licensed under an open source license. But there is also a professional edition and a range of complimentary commercial services for those who want service, support, or customizations. The business model is classic open source: the free download seeds the market with potential customers, and as some of those run up against the limits of what they are willing to do on their own, they make inquiries about the professional edition. Thus open source creates an inbound channel of qualified sales leads, without the overhead and expense of a sales force working in the field.

This is a great business model, but it's important to think about the actual decision-makers in this adoption process. What's distinctive about DotNetNuke is that it's one of the few mature, open source Content Management Systems (CMSs) that is not written in PHP. It is, as the name implies, ASP.NET based. And this reminds me of a prdocut management position I was in some years ago when (a) the only mature CMS choices were PHP-based, and (b) PHP on Windows was not yet a viable alternative.

The company in question was in a typical position: they were not a technology company, but needed a strong web presence for their business and to connect to the online community of their customers. They had a home-grown CMS solution that wasn't scaling, wasn't secure, and wasn't stable. My product management team put together a good comparison chart of various CMS choices, many of them open source. I sat down with the web development manager to review the choices.

"Some of these are good systems," he said, "but I have a team of .NET developers, and these are all PHP-based. I don't have head count to go out and hire a PHP dev for this project."

Note the decision-making process at work here:

From an agreed list of candidate software, an engineering team will download something to "test drive";
One developer will do some testing and make a recommendation;
From a short list of recommended software a more thorough test will be done with a prototype or pilot project;
Finally a choice will be made, and money will be spent.

The person with the first vote in the process is not a CIO or any other traditional "IT Decision Maker". It's one dev, talking to his manager. If your software gets vetoed at that level, or -- worse -- never even gets a try-out, then your product isn't in the decision-making process.

A lot has changed in recent years. PHP is now much better supported on Windows, and .NET projects like DotNetNuke are available and much more mature. This is as it should be. For open source to spread to its full potential, it has to be available in the technology adoption decision-making process. And that availability starts with being available to the hidden technology decision-maker: that lone developer who will look at software written in a framework they understand for a platform they work with.