Microsoft Open Sources ASP.NET MVC 227
Jimmy Zimms writes "Microsoft's ASP.NET MVC is an extension built on the core of ASP.NET that brings some of the popular practices and ease of development that were popularized by Ruby on Rails and Django to the .NET developers.
Scott Guthrie, the inventor of ASP.NET, just announced that
Microsoft is open sourcing the ASP.NET MVC stack under the MS-PL license. 'I'm excited today to announce that we are also releasing the ASP.NET MVC source code under the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL). MS-PL is an OSI-approved open source license. The MS-PL contains no platform restrictions and provides broad rights to modify and redistribute the source code.' Here's the text of the MS-PL.
Read it (Score:4, Interesting)
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ohhhhhh maybe because it's microsoft -__-
Read it PLEASE!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank god someone said it. Ya know, HALF of the posts on here so far are "I wont trust MS" or some other closed-mind bullshit from Linux fanbois who MUST have it compatible with the GPL otherwise they piss their pants.
If you take a step back and look at it, it is an amazing licence coming from Microsoft to use on something like this. The only issue the GPL has with it is its slight copyleft policies...go read the copyleft wiki to see if that's really a bad thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft [wikipedia.org]
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The terms "reproduce," "reproduction," "derivative works," and "distribution" have the same meaning here as under U.S. copyright law.
I know I'm just a paranoid geek, but does that seem like a potential exploit? The license can be changed retroactively.
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Not really. They can create a new license (call it MS-PL v2 for convenience). However, they can't change the MS-PL itself without needing to re-certify it; it would automatically be a new version.
Additionally, they can't do any kind of "retroactive" change to the licensing. They can state that all of their MS-PL code is now MS-PL v2 code, and not available to anybody with brown eyes if they want. However, the old code is already distributed; they can't revoke that.
More specifically and importantly, they can
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Dude, this is Slashdot. People will cry 'Just like the BSD license? Yet ANOTHER thing M$ has stolen! Man, can't they even come up with their own LICENSE?'
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Why jump to conclusions just because it's Microsoft?
You're new here, huh?
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Yeah... the M$ specific license could just be the arrogance of M$ for not using any other established/competitor's license, and for their lawyers to pass a bigger check because a whole "new license text".
Now, I don't know almost anything about the product being open sourced, but it would only matter if that product could be really usable standalone outside Windows platforms (what is the utility of opening the source code of a single module of a big stack like .NET?): Sadly, most M$ products seem to be unnat
Nice Try Guys! (Score:5, Funny)
MS-PL (Score:5, Informative)
I really don't /want/ to like the MS-PL or anything Microsoft, but I read it, and re-read it, and I can't see anything wrong with it. In fact, at the risk of being modded to oblivion, I gotta' say it's a far cry easier to understand than the GPL license, seems straightforward, and truly "open." It seems roughly as open as the BSD license. It doesn't even require you to open your own code under the same license. What am I missing? Is this a late April Fools' joke?
Re:MS-PL (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a self-proclaimed EULA/License Nazi, and I have to agree.
It did occur to me that Microsoft might actually have a toe in the pool of common sense...testing the waters, so to speak. Play fair and see what happens?
This is a good thing, no?
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Ha, say what you like about Microsoft- they're survivors.
They've never had the best software, they've never had had the most corporate friends, the law isn't even on their side, but by god they know how to stay on top.
They've caught on that Free Software is kicking their rear all over the development and server-side scene. When in Rome?
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It's the BSD license with one major change: it acknowledges software patents, and provides bi-directional protection from them. Specifically:
* You receive a royalty-free patent license to use anything covered by the MS-PL.
* If anybody sues you over a patent in software covered by the MS-PL, they lose the patent license mentioned above.
* You must retain all patent notices (as well as copyright, attribution, and trademark notices) when you redistribute the software.
* Patents ap
I've used it over BSD (Score:2)
For the simple reason it is worded pretty much like the BSD license, only it doesn't demand you name the copyright holders. When I open source stuff and people contribute, there are multiple people who own copyright on all the bits of code. The BSD license (at least the template on Codeplex) really only lets you enter one copyright holder. MS-PL is worded so that you don't have to list every single contributor.
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It doesn't even require you to open your own code under the same license
In fact that is the only area where one might make a reasonable objection, the lack of duty to redistribute source code, but the GP doesn't even take that road and criticizes the entire license simply because it was written by Microsoft. Not every OSI license is like the GPL and requires redistribution of modification source code, that doesn't mean that the license is "out to get you" it just means that you are free to license your modifications how you please without additional duties or encumbrances. Now,
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(B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.
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Mono already has a good chunk of the ASP.NET 3.5 APIs. Enough to get most ASP.NET MVC applications up and running with this newly open source library.
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ASP.NET MVC runs on Mono 2.4 out of the box.
Not only does it run, but you can now install a MonoDevelop plugin that will provide all the tooling to get the Linux developer experience to match the Visual Studio experience for MVC development.
It is quite sweet.
So? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the point of open source was to make and share useful things. Things like development libraries, controls, frameworks, protocol stacks, and plenty of other useful widgets. Or is the goal really to just get free shit and I'm missing the point?
And In Todays Top Story (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, Jim, 5 years after the dam began to crack, someone at Microsoft realized that the whole construction could be swept downstream at any moment. That's when this repair crew...
panning shot of Microsoft Open Source Evangelists at work shovelling sand
shot of developers spilling out of the Microsoft dam and into the PHP, Perl, Python, Java and Ruby streams
For Action Eyewitness OnTheSpot First News, I'm Lance Thruster reporting from the Microsoft dam.
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Re:Uh, yeah.... (Score:5, Informative)
I agree that Visual Studio is a very nice tool.
Luckily the code that you produce with Visual Studio will run on Mono (no recompilations necessary) including code that uses ASP.NET MVC. And with the new support for ASP.NET precompiled sites in Mono (available in Mono 2.4) you do not even need to copy the source code to your target server.
Click "Publish" in visual studio, enter the location for your shared directory, and you have a fully working ASP.NET MVC app running on Linux, without leaving Windows.
We are working on various integration points for Visual Studio that will give developers even more: debugging from Visual Studio remote applications deployed on Linux systems and producing packages ready-for-distribution on Linux.
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Publishing straight to a Linux server from Visual Studio? That's a pretty sweet trick right there. Mono is an excellent project, but I've yet to find an IDE I prefer over Visual Studio (aside from out-of-the-box refactoring capabilities, which are pretty weak).
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Does mono still have that absolutely asstastic garbage collector that is non-compacting?
You can make mono compatible with silly shit like publishing from visual studio which is useless in a production environment(unless your a complete idiot and let your developers publish directly). So while thats cool and useful for school kids working on class projects, there are far more important things that need to be fixed in mono than visual studio integration.
You might want to fix the garbage collector so the web
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and you'll have your VB revolution on the Linux desktop.
I think back to all the corporate VB applications I've ever had the pleasure to use.... and can't think of any. Now shitty crappy useless poxy annoying pieces of ignorant-mumpty-who-thought-he-was-a-programmer-because-he-could-click-a-few-toolbars ones, there were loads of.
I agree consistency in development toolkits and so on is a good thing, and making it easier to develop GUIs is a good thing (eg use QTCreator), but the 'ease of use' of VB is not nec
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PS. Linux needs a real installer / uninstaller for applications too, and that really means you need to suck it up and implement some sort of a registry for all of your settings. Woops, did I say that?
You just blew any credibility you may have had. The registry was the single worst feature ever implemented in a mainstream OS and has nothing to do with an installer. On top of that it's way easier to install most software under Linux. No CDs, no license keys. Just select the software you want and it's downloaded and installed automajically. Worst case you have to add a URL for a repository.
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no, the registry was an improvement over windows .ini files, however where there was once less than a dozen such files, the registry became a place to store fecking everything, to the point where it became a multi-megabyte monster.
That's the moral of this story, it doesn't matter what you use, or how lovely the tool you choose is - someone can turn it into the beast from the black arse of sysadmin hell if they're not careful.
I hear samba is going to use a registry like system for their Samba 4 development.
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License keys have nothing to do with the OS - applications could use them on Linux if they wished to. Windows applications can be installed from the web too. Of course, if you want the user to make some installation choices, it can't be done automatically no matter what OS you use.
Will MS-PL Overshadow GPL? (Score:2, Interesting)
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A little paranoia is healthy. ;)
I think Microsoft is certainly going to use "Open Source" as a marketing and PR tool -- as does every other corporation which gets involved in Open Source.
Could they be perceived as the leader? I think they could actually become the leader, and not just in perception -- considering how much code they write, that's just a question of whether that's what they want to do or not. If they committed themselves to it, you couldn't stop them.
Would it be a bad thing if Microsoft (o
It is a free market man (Score:2)
GPL isn't the final word on open source licenses. Quite frankly, I'm pleased to see more options and further, I'm glad people are taking the time to think before they just blindly stamp a GPL on their project. GPL is good for some projects, but it isn't good for all.
You are. If Microsoft starts going open source, it means you've won.
It is the same with the environmental movement. The environmentalists won. Their cause grew from a fringe group of "tree huggers" to something that is
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And maybe I'm paranoid.
It is actually part of an evil conspiracy by aliens (Steve Ballmer is actually one of them) to melt your brain and take over the world.
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Will MS-PL Overshadow GPL?
First of all, it won't, because the amount of code that is released under Ms-PL is, in practice, minuscule compared to that under GPL. Furthermore, Ms-PL is mostly only used by Microsoft so far, and perhaps for some OSS projects based on MS technologies, hosted on CodePlex, etc. It doesn't show any signs of spreading beyond those boundaries.
Second, even if it ever does that, why would you care? If Ms-PL will indeed overshadow GPL, then it's still a true open source license; and if Microsoft releases enough
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RTFL [opensource.org].
It's very generous. Similar to the BSD license, which has been around for ages.
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Outside the tech world, nobody cares in the least (it's not even like they open-sourced a end-user program - this is a development framework). Inside the tech world, everybody already knows about the GPL and Linux.
Inherently, the fact that something is F/OSS really only matters to developers. End users may like its features, or security, or the fact that it's free of charge. However, none of those are exclusive to the F/OSS world. Even things like the ability to extend the product are available in proprieta
A summary for licensing trolls (Score:3, Insightful)
When I first read the summary title, I thought this was a thread about software which I was interested in, as this may help Mono, which I would very much like to use in on FBSD in place of my Windows ASP.NET servers. Then I read the summary and thought maybe it was more about licensing. Finally I noticed douchebagtimothy's jab at the end and realized this is just a Troll.
Why is it that 'news for nerds, stuff that matters' translates to 'news for GPL fanatics who don't even understand WHY they like GPL?'
Allow me to troll and rant myself for a bit ...
To all the twits who scream 'MS IS UP TO SOMETHING THEY SHOULD USE GPL AND BE TRUELY FREE!!!' ... go fuck yourself. The license they are using if FAR more free than anything your little hippie daddy Stallmen has ever even considered. Its a lot more focused on accomplishing what you think you're accomplishing with GPL than GPL is.
To all the twits who scream 'NOT GPL COMPATIBLE!' ... again, go fuck yourself, your not only wrong, but obviously completely oblivious to the fact that GPL incompatibilities are almost always caused by retarded bullshit clauses in GPL designed to make it as bad for society as AIDS. GPL is virus. A virus that needs to fucking die. Its turned into a far more restrictive license than anything I've ever got from Apple OR Microsoft.
To all the twits who think GPL is an open license.
my final one ... go fuck yourselves. GPL is about as open as the proprietary licenses I deal with from Microsoft, RSA, Apple. Those proprietary licenses I can actually negotiate and get what I want out of them for a fee. With GPL that requires me to negotiate with everyone contributor, a practically impossible task for any project large enough for me to bother wanting to use it in another project rather than writing it myself.
GPL just makes people write software over and over again, not reuse it. Someone makes a GPL library, everyone wants to use it and realizes that the licensing is just fucking ridiculous, so they write there own and release it under an actual open source license.
I'm so sick if you retarded 13 year old GPL fanboys who have no ability to think for yourself and all you do is listen to your bleeding heart professors and that fat hippie fuck Stallmen, neither of which are capable of holding a real just that can actually be considered useful to society.
If you've ever even looked at Stallman's home page you should be afraid of him. Most kids go through an 'activist' stage where they fill the need to make things 'better'. Then somewhere along the lines reality sets in and they get out of school and realize theres more to life than the one sided view they had previously. Stallman and his GPL fanatics are like this, except too damn retarded to grow up. Or apparently make themselves appear presentable in public.
Re:Typical (Score:5, Informative)
The MS-PL is a Free Software license, according to the FSF. It's just not compatible with the GPL.
There are multiple "shared source" licenses, some Free, others not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source [wikipedia.org]
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read the FSF's actual published opinion about licenses other than the GPL [gnu.org] and then mod the parent "trolling for sanity" (as in screwing for virginity).
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The GPL is a solution for a problem that doesn't exist anymore. Big unix is dead. Open source is here and it has the momentum, but the GPL is dead weight.
What if GPL code suddenly turned to BSD code and Microsoft (or anyone else) could steal it? History has shown that private forks of open source software generally don't work.
The open source development model is superior to the closed source development model. When People (or companies) do need to fork open source software, they quickly find thei
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Apple, case closed. Having GPL 'protects' projects from corporate abuse is valid depending on your philosophical views. Really, BSD guys may not have cared about its use in macs, but maybe some did feel sad about it. At least the GPL protects against companies complete 'stealing/borrowing/whatever' of the base code without providing any functional enhancements that said company added to the base product.
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I always love when this reply comes up in a free software licensing discussion, because it happens every time. So, tell me again, how Apple used so much BSD code in Macs, without ever contributing back or participating in the openness? Feel free to include NeXT.
Feel free to also include Konqueror switching to WebKit.
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Are you kidding me?
I bought my home NAS (a Thecus) specifically because it was using linux for firmware. Thanks to that fact, I have hacked my own custom firmware with all the tools and services I need. Thanks to that there is an entire community hacking the Thecus models. Compare that to any BSD based NAS, where you get a binary firmware, which means no tinkering.
I've always tried explaining it like this:
Author -> (developers)* -> End User
Proprietary -> BSD -> GPL
With a proprietary license all
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Your sig is amusing here.
You may have heard of this little family of software products called Microsoft Windows. Up until version 6, this proprietary software used substantial amounts of BSD-derived code - specifically in the networking stack.
You might also have heard of Apple's OS X. It's a bit rarer than Windows but still reasonably common. It's entire kernel (much of its core, in fact) was derived from BSD as well (they chose to release the source for some portions of some of their platforms, but it's st
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The GPL is a solution for a problem that doesn't exist anymore. Big unix is dead. Open source is here and it has the momentum, but the GPL is dead weight. What if GPL code suddenly turned to BSD code and Microsoft (or anyone else) could steal it? History has shown that private forks of open source software generally don't work.
No, private forks often work. Look at what Apple did with BSD, what IBM did with OpenOffice and Apache, etc. etc. Also look at what Apple would have done with KHTML if it didn't have to keep it open (I presume what it did with BSD).
The GPL and LGPL are very important for various reasons. Another is that it allows profitable dual-licensing models, such as used by Sun and Nokia. The BSD doesn't allow that. There is a place for both types of licenses.
Re:Typical (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get it, the license says you can make derivative works, and redistribute those works. Seems pretty free to me.
I'm not trying to argue the point with you. I just don't get it. Its legal speak, which I'm always doubtful that I understand the implications. But, this seems like free software.
Where am I getting it wrong?
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The patent claim section. If you ever bring a patent claim against a contributor to the MS-PL licensed project you lose all rights under the license...
So if you develop around one of these code bases you are giving MS a one-way patent non-aggression pact, they are giving you nothing of the sort in return.
How is that any different than something like GPL? (Score:5, Informative)
I think that clause is fairly reasonable if I use that license for my code. If somebody is gonna bring a patent claim against my stuff, screw them, they loose the license to use my work.
How is this different than similar patent clauses in other licenses?
Re:Typical (Score:5, Informative)
(3.B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.
You can bring patent claims, as long you're not claiming THIS software violates your patents. If you claim the software infringes YOUR patents, and aren't willing to allow that -- then you don't get a free pass on THEIR patents either. Ie: Share and Share alike. Also, your license for the software doesn't terminate -- just your license to the patents. Which brings us to:
(2.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...
So it's not a one-way non-agression pact. It's a two-way pact. As long as you don't sue them for patent infringement, you can (re)use all of their code without fear of them suing you for patent infringement... Of course, since THEY are the ones giving YOU the source code, this is really slanted heavily in your favor -- you can have a look before you use it, decide if they violate your patents, and THEN choose to use it OR sue them. They have no such recourse.
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We are talking about two different things here.
My point is that by implementing around the MS-PL you are granting MS the right to define what IP you are able to protect through legal channels.
Other OSI licenses deal with this issue in a variety of ways, but none that I know of hands the right to define patent enforceability to whether or not one vendor - MS in this case - chooses to include the a code invention in their own source tree.
That is exactly what this is doing.
Re:Typical (Score:4, Informative)
This is untrue.
First, they ARE providing something to you: a world-wide, non-exclusive, royalty-free patent license. They can't sue you over patents in their code base; they already gave you a license to them.
Second, if you bring a patent claim against a contributor over code covered by the MS-PL (not just any code they wrote, as you implied) then you don't lose all rights, you only lose the royalty-free patent license from that specific contributor.
Example: Microsoft releases some code (call it code-base A) under MS-PL. It contains patented algorithm X.
You take A and extend it. Your extension (code-base B) contains an improvement on X, which you have patented. Call this improved version Y.
If Microsoft sues you over Y (which is basically a better X) then they lose the right to use Y, meaning that if Y is upheld they would have to license it from you. Furthermore, even if they win the case and the patent on Y is invalidated, X can still be used free of charge; they can't revoke your license to use it.
This seems a fair way to handle software patents in open-source software; a sort of copyleft scheme applied to patent right rather than copyright.
Mind you, IANAL, but the terminology seems pretty clear.
Re:Typical (Score:5, Insightful)
That Microsoft Shared Source License is open source, but not free software.
This isn't the Shared Source License. It's the Microsoft Public License which is accepted as a free software license by both the OSI and the FSF. You seem to be ranting about something completely unrelated to this article.
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You may need to check the definition of Open Source. It doesn't ONLY mean that you can view the source code. It means you can modify it and redistribute it. Before trolling next time, educate yourself here:
http://opensource.org/docs/osd [opensource.org]
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FTFL:
(B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.
Is this compatible with any other open source licences?
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I believe the patent terms are the main thing that sets MS-PL apart from other F/OSS licenses. On the other hand, if you *don't* sue the contributors, then you can use their patents (in MS-PL code) royalty-free.
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Doesn't the GPLv3 have a statement similar to this?
AFAIK the GPL3 says you have to open up your patents along with the source. It does not mention challenging the patents of others.
Whenever someone conveys software covered by GPLv3 that they've written or modified, they must provide every recipient with any patent licenses necessary to exercise the rights that the GPL gives them. In addition to that, if any licensee tries to use a patent suit to stop another user from exercising those rights, their license will be terminated.
What this means for users and developers is that they'll be able to work with GPLv3-covered software without worrying that a desperate contributor will try to sue them for patent infringement later. With these changes, GPLv3 affords its users more defenses against patent aggression than any other free software license.
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html [fsf.org]
I'm not sure though, feel free to correct me.
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Granted .Net combines the Speed of Java with the Platform Independence of just compiling a binary file.
However it is actually good for software development as it has already good libraries for a lot of useful functions that we do a lot of.
I have actually surprised some development teams how quickly I was able to write an interface for their systems in days vs. weeks that it took others in different languages.
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The JVM does the same thing, and has for some time (as in, before .NET existed), so "the speed of Java", from GP, is a perfect description of this, rather than being "EXACTLY backward".
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so "the speed of Java", from GP, is a perfect description of this
and I thought he was being ironic.
I suppose it *should* be really fast, but combine with all the exceptions in the framework object-oriented layers, the lax approach to memory management (which leads to hundreds of GCs per second), the 'lets be safe' approach to multithreading locks, etc... just be grateful that computers are so unbelieveably fast and memory so cheap nowadays, you'd never have run Java or .net on a computer just a few years ag
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I've been running Java on desktop computers for close to a decade. Sure, its slower than hand-crafted assembly, so was C when it took over the world -- the gap has closed largely with better compilers, just as the Java -> C gap has closed in most practical domains for similar reasons, and just like the JavaScript -> (pick your lower level language) gap has with increasingly perfo
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While the JRE did include JIT capability roughly a decade ago, it is only in the last few years that its performance has approached that of native code. A few more optimizations were added with each release, but java 1.5.0 was still slower on many benchmarks than .NET 1.1.
Furthermore, the GP's point was that .NET is slow, as Java used to be (and is still generally perceived to be). (More specifically, the implication was that .NET combines the worst of native code and Java.) While the number of runtime chec
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[...] to run faster than a binary optimized for generic 386 (or other platform, see below). There's a very short delay as the Just-In-Time compiler converts the intermediate code to machine code, but after the first time this happens the result is cached on your system so it starts instantly.
that sounds awesome. Java awesome. meanwhile, according to my anecdotal evidence, every .NET app I ever ran was dog slow, a resource hog and generally felt shitty.
Re:Hardly open source (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardly open source
How so? It's accepted as a free software license not only by the OSI but by the FSF as well.
This is an improvement, but it's hardly a compatible license with most other licenses.
The GPL is incompatible with a ton of other free software licenses. Does that make it "hardly open source" as well?
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Actually this may be a bit misleading. The MS-PL is firmly on their list of "GPL-Incompatible Free Software Licenses" [fsf.org]. This means that they urge you not use this license and it is incompatible with the GNU GPL.
Hah (Score:5, Interesting)
You are funny. Did you read that page? Pretty much every damn license in existance is incompatible with the GPL. But the "fun" one is this:
Yeah, right. Reminds me of this gem buried in the old man pages for the GNU implementation of su [freebsd.org]:
Yeah, screw security! Who needs passwords! Down with sysadmins!!
I might as well quote the rest of it because it is so juice and nobody will bother to follow the link above:
PS: Just realized that the FreeBSD man-page thingy offers way more man pages than just for FreeBSD. Check it out!
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Your "and" is quite misleading there. Looking at that page, they recommend you not use any license that is incompatible with the GNU equivalents - and that even includes licenses which are more free than GNU versions.
Still, GP is right. The FSF does indeed say that Ms-PL is a "free software" license. The fact that they also say "don't use it because it's not compatible with GPL (like everything fucking else!)" is not really relevant.
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The GPL is also deliberately incompatible with their competition, particularly including other open licenses. So what's your point? If you think "Open" means "You can do whatever you want", then you're restricting yourself to pretty much just bsd, which is an entirely separate holy war.
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Last I checked GPL3 was compatible with the licenses that make up the vast majority of open source projects.
GPL is the Windows of open source licenses. Whereas Windows is marketing based, GPL is ideology based. They both rely on product lock in. And the world would be better of if their market positions were smaller.
Trust the GPL for a second and it will come in a rip you apart. Just like it did with BSD, taking everything of value while giving nothing back. All in the name of open source fundamentalism.
Am I a bit harsh? Propbably. But you can't deny (well, you can if you are a gpl fundamentalist) that the simila
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I can't put GPL code into a BSD project, GPL is intentionally incompatible. Interestingly, in almost exactly the same way that MS-PL is incompatible - both require that you not switch licensing terms when you reuse the code. Gnu seems to take the position that they are the only license in the world that should have any form of "copyleft" restriction, which is odd since they spend a lot of time pointing out the importance and benefit of copyleft restrictions. Copyleft licenses essentially require people
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This is an improvement, but it's hardly a compatible license with most other licenses.
Sorry, but this isn't true. That it isn't compatible with the GPL doesn't mean it's incompatible with most other licenses. It's perfectly compatible with the BSD/Apache2/X11/Zlib/etc permissive licenses. You're spreading nonsense.
Re:Hardly open source (Score:5, Interesting)
It's impossible to be compatible with the BSD license and not be compatible with the GPL, because BSD is compatible with the GPL.
Unless you have some strange backwards definition of compatible, under which you would say "the GPL is compatible with the BSD license" because you can take BSD code and relicense it as GPL. However I think most people consider that statement false, while "the BSD is compatible with the GPL" is the true statement.
The fact is that BSD is compatible with the MS-PL and BSD is compatible with GPL. The BSD is compatible with a *lot* of licenses, including closed-source with a NDA.
I can't tell if you are being disingenous (Score:5, Insightful)
Either I'm missing your point, or you are only telling a partial truth.
It is one-way compatible. Almost all open-source licenses are one-way compatible with GPL. BSD code goes in, nothing comes out. MS-PL code goes in, nothing comes out. GPL is the blackhole of open source licenses. Stuff goes in, nothing comes out. Why? The license prohibits it.
Whoever modded this troll (Score:2, Offtopic)
Explain the bit where I'm wrong. If GPL was "two-way" compatible, this scenario would be possible:
1) BSD driver gets written.
2) GPL guys take driver, incorporate it into their code and make improvements.
3) BSD guys merge changes back into their code.
4) BSD guys codebase remains BSD licensed.
If I'm a troll, then my assertion would be deliberately wrong. I fail to see where I'm wrong. Unless I'm wrong, the "two-way" scenario I just outlined is impossible.
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3) BSD guys merge changes back into their code.
Step 3 is illegal. It violates the GPL license. You are not allowed to distribute GPL licensed code (the improvements the GPL guys did) under a non GPL license.
That is the whole point of the grandparent saying that the GPL is a black hole. Because it really is. It is the leecher license of open source licenses, wanting other licenses to be one-way "compatible" with it so that it can leech code from them, but not wanting to give anything in return.
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I think I'm not explaining this right.
The BSD is one-way compatible with the GPL, exactly like you say. You can take BSD code and make it GPL.
The BSD is one-way compatible with the MS-PL as well. You can take BSD code and make it MS-PL.
Note that the position of the MS-PL and the GPL are the same in these two statements.
I have *never* heard somebody say "the GPL is compatible with the BSD license" and I doubt you would either. It is backwards from the way most people interpret the one-way nature. But for som
Indeed (Score:2)
And I'm glad I just misread you and toned down my response figuring as much :-)
To further my analogy of blackhole-dom. BSD is pretty much the anti-blackhole (whitehole?)
Sure I have, hell I'm probably guilty of phrasing it that way myself.
The FSF plays word-games all the time hoping nobody notices. Only the most astute, careful reader would notice t
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I find it interesting that you accuse the FSF of doing word games by saying "the GPL is compatible with the BSD license" while apparently defending the original poster who literally says "the MS-PL is compatible with the BSD license".
In my opinon the two statements are equally wrong, yet apparently people will only attact the one on the side they disagree with.
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I'm now actually confused. I reread the MS-PL and now I'm not clear if it is closer to GPL or BSD.
It is this line [microsoft.com]:
I'm confused with. Does that mean that if you use my library or incorpor
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Does that mean that if you use my library or incorporate my code, your whole codebase becomes MS-PL'd?
I think they are only talking about the MS-PL portion. Unlike the GPL, they don't make a point about the license covering the "whole" of the work.
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That was my original interpretation as well. It just threw me off the second time I read it.
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Close, although in this case MS-PL does NOT "go in"; it is incompatible with GPL due to the explicit requirement that redistributed source must be licensed under the MS-PL.
Re:Hardly open source (Score:4, Interesting)
You can put BSD code into a GPL program, exactly as you state.
You cannot put MS-PL code into a BSD program. If you could, then you could put it into a GPL program, since you can put BSD code into a GPL program!
The two licenses are IDENTICAL. BSD is compatible with both of them. They are both incompatible with the BSD and with each other.
Pretending that somehow the original BSD code vaporizes and disappears when somebody uses it in a GPL program, but this magical effect does not happen with the MS-PL program is a nice piece of FUD, too.
'Grade A' Propaganda (Score:2)
A fine bit of propaganda you've got there. You would make a fine politician! You see, you glossed over the bit about "additionally licensed as GPL". What additionaly actually means is that your code has now been "enhanced" in a way that makes it impossible to move back into your BSD codebase without GPL'ing the BSD code.
You can use weasel words all you want, but the bottom line is GPL is one-way. It is only compatible s
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If you take BSD code and combine it with MS-PL, the result is not BSD licensed. This should be pretty obvious, because everybody, including you, know that MS-PL code cannot be combined with GPL code. Since BSD code can, MS-PL is not BSD and not "compatible" with it.
Trying to pretend they are different is propaganda, whether the FSF or an astroturfer does it. Get the facts.
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I never made the claim you can back port MS-PL code to BSD... though the licenses are similar enough that you just might be able to. Thinking about it, it is actually rather hard to backport anything into BSD, at least if you take the license very literally (whatever I mean by that...).
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Who said GPL? I specifically didn't say GPL.
There are a whole lot of other licenses the MS-PL doesn't play nice with. Meanwhile as I said, if this wasn't barely shoved into OSI, it would get even less of a glance than now.
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Re:Free stuff on top of paid (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not generally a fan of Microsoft, but I am actually quite impressed with the ASP.NET MVC framework. I certainly wouldn't say "very few people want it".
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So what if it's a commercial product. The world is ran on commercial products. Not everything has to be developed by individuals, non-commercial organizations, or non-profit foundations. A good portion of Linux was developed, sponsored by, or somehow made possible (either directly or indirectly) by companies with commercial products. Just because it's commercial doesn't mean it can't be open sourced or made freely available. The .NET framework is freely (as in without additional cost) to Windows users
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And yes I know it could work with Mono, but why?
Umm, why not? Seriously, you just drove a Hummer* through your own argument. It is not something that can only be used in conjunction with a commercial product. It can run on another OS. It doesn't require the .NET framework.
Is your anti-MS bias REALLY that strong that you could KNOW you're wrong and post anyhow?**
* In keeping with /. analogy guidelines, if anybody has a bigger car to suggest let me know.
** Really, I'm not new here, I promise.
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Plagiarizer... from http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/04/01/asp-net-mvc-1-0.aspx [asp.net] ...
# re: ASP.NET MVC 1.0
Thursday, April 02, 2009 6:34 AM by Alastair Smith
Scott, this is fantastic news! The EULA in the installer seems incompatible with this milestone, however:
"2. Scope of License. The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You may not
* work around any technical limitations in the software;
* reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
* publish the software for others to copy;
* rent, lease or lend the software; or
* __transfer the software or this agreement to any third party.__"
We rely on ASP.NET MVC for a couple of products that we sell to customers (for them to install locally, not in a SaaS-type environment). That EULA clause would appear to prevent us from re-distributing ASP.NET MVC in any form (even the pre-packaged installer). Please could you clarify?
2nd time today I've nailed you, but this is getting old. Have you tried cordless bungee jumping? Blog about that, wouldja?
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In short: yes. Read the license.
If you (as a user or contributor) don't violate the license, you have 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"
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2004? Ever heard of smalltalk?
Yes I have. And dear dog, do I wish I were lucky enough to have used it professionally. Although it looks like Seaside has been around longer than that the web site says:
Is Seaside free? What license does Seaside use?
As of the Seaside 2.5 (8 January 2004), Seaside has been under the MIT license. This means that you can use it to build commercial apps, royalty free, with no restrictions. Note that, besides Squeak, this also applies to commercial Smalltalks such as Cincom Smalltalk and Dolphin Smalltalk.
So out of sheer luck in speaking in broad generalisims, I'll stick with my 2004 number:)
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Guh? Do you know what MVC is? What the fuck does this have to do with Rails?