.Net Jonesie - Provider Source Code

Monday, April 17, 2006

I was just catching up on my long overdue blog reading and saw on ScottGu's blog that MS have released the source for all (?) the ASP.Net 2 providers. This is awesome! If you want to create your own providers then this will be a fantastic resource to help you do it 'The Microsoft Way'.

It would be great if they extended this philosophy to more of the Framework. Borland used to do this with the Delphi VCL. I never actually used any of the VCL code but on occasion it was necessary to delve into it to figure out why something worked the way it did. Usually this was because of some strange control behavior rather than a core runtime feature. Microsoft do have shared source agreements on other products - most notably Windows (2K & 2K3?) and Rotor but you have to jump through flaming hoops to get it.

Publicly releasing the code for ALL the ASP.Net and WinForms controls would not provide any competitors with an advantage. There are plenty of public licenses around that would protect Microsoft from litigation or MS Legal could come up with something in their spare time. It would not encourage many developers to copy and enhance the standard controls. It would, however, provide a wealth of knowledge to developers that would allow them to understand why the .Net World is round and not flat.

Clearly, the Open Source movement has had some effect on Microsoft. Over the last few years - in fact ever since Steve Ballmer took over - Microsoft have been much more open - and not just in the source code kind of way. I'm sure this debate has not ever gone away and I'm also sure they are constantly being asked the same question but I've never heard a reason from Microsoft that explains why they cannot open source more products. I'm guessing many at Microsoft are also thinking the same thing.

Monday, April 17, 2006 8:08:34 AM (New Zealand Standard Time, UTC+12:00)

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