[bad_user]

     From Google, to Yahoo, to other teams in Microsoft, to small startups, to 
     IBM, to single-person freelance developers--each one of these groups have 
     open source projects that accept community contributions.

The difference is that Microsoft is selling these products to companies that have idiots in charge and that won't touch anything related to open-source; although it's Microsoft's fault really.

EDIT: This is their excuse, that their customers prefer to be safe in regards to the IP they buy from Microsoft.

[ericflo]

Are those people the same ones who would buy into an early-stage functional programming language like F#?

[MichaelGG]

Both sets of people can be present in the same company. There have been postings in the F# forums of devs wanting to use F# because they know it's good, but being very clear that corporate policy is going to restrict them unless certain conditions are met. Whether IP concerns from open source contribs is one of these, I dunno.

Nitpick: F# is really a multi-paradigm language. It truly does provide OO, functional, scripting and interactive styles.

[cabalamat]

> There have been postings in the F# forums of devs wanting to use F# because they know it's good, but being very clear that corporate policy is going to restrict them unless certain conditions are met.

Maybe the F# people should rename it "C# Functional", then the devs can write code in it and if the managers say anything, just tell them it's part of C#, and they'll be none the wiser.

[icey]

Someone here had a good way to do this (sorry, my google-fu is not strong enough to find the link):

"What language do you use?"

".Net"

"Oh, OK"

[gtani]

there seem to be a lot of interop issues with C#

http://www.ctocorner.com/fsharp/book/ch17.aspx