[JamesBarney]

Here is some blatant speculation about the problem with .NET and OSS.

The the larger problem is one of self-selection. C# devs are not alone in not contributing to opens source software. The vast majority of devs don't make meaningful contributions to OSS. It's just the the few people who get really stoked about open source software and love making a positive contribution to world through software have been turned off by Microsoft's behavior for the last 10-15 years. So they never entered the .NET/C# world to begin with.

The second is incentives. Java shops are much more comfortable with open source then .NET shops. Open source is still terrifying to many enterprise customers, and a lot of .NET shops. And the incentives besides making a positive contribution to the world [0] for contributing to OSS are it looks good on your resume, maybe you could consult on it, and getting to be paid to work on your own OSS project. But with most customers not using OSS the developers don't get a lot of personal benefits from it.

The third is how bug fixing your favorite OSS acts like a gateway drugs. In the past .NET devs wouldn't have very much experience with any OSS. If they found a bug in their favorite framework they would report it. End of story. Everything they used was closed source MS stack. But if they were working with Java(and probably working on an OSS library) they could dive into that library and make the fix themselves. Now that all of the core libraries for MS are being open sourced many more devs will start to get familiar with what it's like to be able to make a change to library or framework you use on a daily basis. And hopefully some will catch the OSS bug.

I think this will change. As Microsoft pushes more OSS, enterprise customers will see it as less scary. Devs who are into OSS might start considering .Net as an option. And finally devs will start to get a taste of what it's like to get to fix a bug on a framework or library that 1000's of people use.

[0] -see point 1 why people who wanna make a positive contribution to world through open source software shy away from being .net developers

[jameshart]

"Microsoft's behavior for the last 10-15 years"

The 'bad stuff' from an OSS point of view is, generally, longer ago than that.

- "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish": 1995 - US vs. Microsoft Corp: 1998 - Halloween Documents: 1998

Scraping under the 15 year bar:

- Microsoft vs Sun settlements: 2001-2002 - Ballmer "Linux is a Cancer": 2001

SCO vs IBM was 2003, so I guess fits into the '10-15' ballpark, but I think "over the last 10-15 years" makes it seem more continuous than the evidence suggests. If you were to describe Microsoft's behavior over the last 10-15 years with respect to open source software, I think a fair assessment would be "improving".

I'm not, honestly, trying to be an apologist for this stuff - it was, clearly, Microsoft policy for a long time to deliberately and pretty unscrupulously undermine Linux and Java and open source adoption. It doesn't appear to be policy to compete unfairly any more, and in some cases MS is producing technologies which support usage of non-MS-originated open and open source technologies. Can we begin to move on a little?

[baghira]

The OOXML "standardization" is more recent. So is Silverlight.

In the end I'm always puzzled when people talk about Microsoft or Apple as if it was one dude who ran over your cat in the early 2000s. It's a vast corporation, whose attitude towards opensource has improved, at least in the cloud and .NET environment (though I've read people comparing Microsoft to Red Hat and Joyent, which is clearly way off). For instance, the issue I find most egregious is selling Windows phones with a restricted bootloader, just like Apple does.

[throwaway2048]

not to mention the plethora of patent lawsuits they launch via shit like intellectual ventures

[fineman]

> Can we begin to move on a little?

Why? Why should we forget that the entire company (currently) is funded by the crimes of the past?

Are they a person who made mistakes when young and now deserves a second chance?

I'm not anti-capitalistic but I'd never deal with, for example, a consultancy that cheated me in the past even if they had all new consultants and managers - some things just don't change. And even if... they might have turned over a new leaf but do they deserve another try and are you obligated to give it to them? Wouldn't it be better for everyone to offer the opportunity to a potentially honest competitor?

As long as people are willing to forgive companies, companies are prepared to bilk them.

[jameshart]

And if people never offer forgiveness, then there's no incentive for them to improve. I guess you're just hoping that if you ignore them they'll go away?

[fineman]

If we all ignored them, and their products, they would go away. Capitalism.

I don't care to offer them a way to improve; their future success isn't my problem.

Why do you feel the need to make Microsoft the victim?

[jevgeni]

Only, Microsoft's competitors are not their customers.