[rjbwork]

And to think, the Android guys originally wanted to use C# as the native Android language, but were worried about being sued by MS for it.

Instead they went with Java and got sued by Oracle for it, whereas MS open sourced it all.

* Yes I know parts of .NET are still closed source/proprietary.

[BHSPitMonkey]

It's also possible that Microsoft might have been less willing to open the language if it had become an integral pillar of the Android ecosystem.

[cema]

True. We don't know that.

I think however that this may be one of those cases when perception is stronger than reality: perception of what Microsoft is and what Java is.

[jdmichal]

The ECMA standardization committee was founded three months after the commercial release of C#.

[BHSPitMonkey]

I'm referring to Microsoft's moves in the past year to release their compiler and other parts of the .NET toolchain (and Xamarin) as MIT-licensed open-source projects (moves the company wasn't forced to make). Even though the language itself has been an open standard for some time, the C# ecosystem was very different a few years ago than it is in 2016.

[jdmichal]

Microsoft even made the C# language specification ECMA and ISO standards. The ECMA process started shortly after the first commercial release. I'm pretty sure if they had just talked to the Microsoft guys, they would have realized everything would be fine.

[taneq]

You have to remember that Microsoft is a very different beast today than they were back in 2005.

[jdmichal]

Not really relevant to this particular conversation. C# was commercially released in July 2000. The ECMA standardization committee was founded in September of the same year. Writing began in January 2003, and the standard officially adopted in June 2006. This is all described in the standard:

http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST...

There's also a standard for CLI (Common Language Infrastructure), which is the underpinning of the .NET platform:

http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST...

[taneq]

I didn't say C# was released after this time, I said Microsoft is a different beast now. They've made a significant swing towards open source and embracing the OSS community. Back in 2005 they still very much thought they ruled the world and could get away with anything.

[jdmichal]

Your opinion on 2005 Microsoft is great and all, but I still don't see its application to this exact conversation. From 2006 and on, anyone could implement a C# compiler and runtime from the ECMA standard with absolutely no barriers from Microsoft. This was the result of a process that started in 2000, a few months after the official release of the language.

[onli]

I think it is relevant. The Microsoft of that time (and it is debatable how much that changed) is not one company on which you'd rely on for a cooperation in such a project. There is no telling which tricks MS might have used to make money out of it – the same way Oracle's API copyright bullshit was a trick to make money. Don't forget that Microsoft uses patents to extort a share of many android phones sold, see http://uk.businessinsider.com/microsoft-android-patent-licen.... I thought that had stopped by now, but that article is from april…