Microsoft to Open Source .NET Stack, Expand Platform to OS X, Linux

[MrCornfed]

.

 

[monty77]

...what's this I see happening??!?

- MS release reasonably priced cloud storage with Office suite and some Skype minutes thrown into the bargain
- MS release a laptop/tablet hybrid that doesn't stink
- MS going open source(ish)
- MS release a Windows version that isn't horrible and IMO is on a better track than OS X at the moment (tablet/mobile/PC consistent experience)

..Windows phone is a bit of a duffer and they're very late to the party but who knows, anything could happen it seems.

 

[fluchtpunkt]

To say it with Steve Jobs:

Hell froze over

This is not some baby version of .NET. It's the whole thing!

 

[Nozuka]

pinch me!

 

[mdelvecchio]

- MS release a Windows version that isn't horrible and IMO is on a better track than OS X at the moment (tablet/mobile/PC consistent experience

not so sure about that - Windows 8 was considered a flop, and people hate it. two versions of IE? two "modes" of apps? it's confusing and I don't think a very successful implementation. perhaps that's why they're skipping 9 and going to v10 for the next major version.

I feel much better about OS X -- a solid OS that gets out of my way, is stable as hell, and isn't pretending it's a touch OS.

 

[NachoGrande]

This is great! MS has the best development environment around!

 

[MacsRgr8]

Wow... times are changing!!!

I wonder what Microsoft's business strategy is nowadays.

 

[MEJHarrison]

As someone who does .NET development for a living, this is extremely exciting news!

 

[anthonylambert]

Some of us have been using .Net c# on Mac and iOS for 4+ years using Xamarin and mono... for the last year Microsoft and Xamarin have been working more and more closely to improve their joint offerings.

It's all not as simple as moving .Net to all these systems. If you notice they are saying Server that's because those apps are typically headless - no GUI. The GUIs are different between these systems. Xamarin has gone a long way with it "Forms" APis which work between iOS, Windows Phone and Android, but they don't support it on MAC, Unix or Desktop Windows for instance. A lot of people resort to using a MVVM or MVC style structure and code each GUI using native APIs but from C#.

 

[RMo]

I wonder how this will impact the Wine project? People have been working with Windows software on OS X and Linux for years. Can anyone speculate what this could mean? Is it possible that we could just "recompile" C# or .NET software for OS X and Linux? Or will it just work? Like Java?

I don't see how this would affect Wine. Wine is supposed to run compiled Windows executables. It is not aimed at being a portable .NET runtime. Further, not every Windows app is written in a .NET language. In fact, most aren't, and you can tell when they are because they take forever to load. Does Wine include a .NET runtime? If not, can it work with an existing one? I don't recall ever trying, but my intuition says no to both. I do remember trying with Mono, which did work (well, on Linux--with some effort on OS X) and might be a better comparison to make here--in fact, MS's annoucement mentions that they seem to be working together.

I predict no effect on Wine, which will continue to be useful as a last resort for running native Windows EXEs on Linux and a few other OSes. Microsoft's announcement will simply help the relatively Windows developers who do use .NET. Even then, I think there will still be a lot of effort involved in porting an app--I doubt you'll be able to take a .NET EXE and run it on a Mac, for example, but even porting code could be a bit of a challenge. May .NET code I see still invokes native Windows APIs, so of course that would need to be removed and worked around for other platforms; second, the CLR itself is different from all the libraries built on top of it. If you write a System.Windows.Forms app, has Microsoft said they're porting that library to other platforms? (Or even WPF for that matter, which despite the "W" seems like it might be a better candidate for porting? Or will they leave GUIs up to third-party libraries like GtkSharp?)

All things considered, however, I find this announcement exciting. I always enjoyed using Visual Studio for hobbyist projects, and not being limited by the Express versions will be great. If it makes doing the same on a Mac easier (by an officially supported pathway), that's even better.

 

[D.T.]

As someone who does .NET development for a living, this is extremely exciting news!

Yeah, I have some clients/products (mostly in the Federal sector) where I use .NET (C#/ASP.NET), so I run a Winders© VM for basically VS.

All my other work is with open source tools (Rails, NodeJS, Python, etc.), Xcode and all my general computing I do on OSX (office apps, design, email, video, you-name-it).

I’d love it if I could develop ASP.NET apps, on the native OSX side, with an IDE that’s as full featured as VS.

 

[Glassed Silver]

.NET on Mac?

Oh please no.

If there's one especially annoying thing on Windows it's .NET.

I'm talking about the user side, for developers it might be a nice platform.

Granted, the realization on Mac might look a lot different. I reserve judgment until then, but my first emotion isn't overly thrilled.

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[monty77]

not so sure about that - Windows 8 was considered a flop, and people hate it. two versions of IE? two "modes" of apps? it's confusing and I don't think a very successful implementation. perhaps that's why they're skipping 9 and going to v10 for the next major version.

I feel much better about OS X -- a solid OS that gets out of my way, is stable as hell, and isn't pretending it's a touch OS.

I largely agree with the specifics but moving to an OS that looks familiar to the average tablet user (if you want it that way) is a smart move. Stick someone in front of Windows 8 who's only used a tablet and they'll fiddle their way around, stick them in front of OS X and they'd be pretty stuck.

Windows 10 is looking really nice, especially the clips I've seen of it running on the Surface Pro. Hoping Apple do something similar with their Air line soon and software to match.

 

[bennibeef]

I largely agree with the specifics but moving to an OS that looks familiar to the average tablet user (if you want it that way) is a smart move. Stick someone in front of Windows 8 who's only used a tablet and they'll fiddle their way around, stick them in front of OS X and they'd be pretty stuck.

Windows 10 is looking really nice, especially the clips I've seen of it running on the Surface Pro. Hoping Apple do something similar with their Air line soon and software to match.

I dont know who got into windows with the surface or another tablet and has no experience with windows itself since lets say xp-7 for younger generations

and if we are talking into the future someone who might get into windows with a surface in younger ages, well then there will be 10 which is basically old school windows on the desktop again. The small timeframe with 8 unified everything wont matter

 

[TsunamiTheClown]

Wow this is for real. I'm stunned.

 

[Joelist]

Basically they are really ramping up their Mono support - Mono will in essence be the "official" .NET for OSX it seems.

This really does open a lot of horizons. Properly written .NET programs run very nicely and quickly (just like any language/compiler poor coding does have impacts).

 

[AlecZ]

I didn't see this coming! Isn't this a really great opportunity for Wine to be improved to have better compatibility?

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.NET on Mac?

Oh please no.

If there's one especially annoying thing on Windows it's .NET.

I'm talking about the user side, for developers it might be a nice platform.

Granted, the realization on Mac might look a lot different. I reserve judgment until then, but my first emotion isn't overly thrilled.

Glassed Silver:mac

You mean the usual "You do not have the right version of .NET. You need 8.0.19865783, not 8.0.19865782; enjoy finding the right installer" issue?

 

[Michael Goff]

So to recap, Microsoft is going open source and free with some of their products, Google is moving towards closed source with parts of Android, and Apple is now selling phablets faster than they can make them. Also my iPad is now as fast as a MacBook Air. What kind of alternate reality tech world have I suddenly stumbled into?

How old is your MacBook Air? O_O

 

[covertsurfer]

Check out omnisharp.net for using C# on OSX with any editor you like! Sublime, Atom, Brackets, Vim, Emacs currently covered!

 

[arkmannj]

Until it's done for DirectX, meh.

it's a start.. but I want to see it on Linux and OS X .. for games..

Opening up DirectX would be pretty great, but my understanding it that MS won't want to let go of DirectX, They consider DirectX a pretty big advantage especially for gaming in Windows vs *nix and Mac. Even looking at video cards you often see in a big bright color, Direct X 11 or whatever version. I almost always have to look further to see the Open GL compatibility. And that's just dealing with the graphics portion of DirectX.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Hard to say what impact this will have on the Mac. Apple doesn't allow pre-reqs for application in the Mac App Store, so no app that require ".NET Framework 4.5 for Mac OS X".

One of my favourite applications (Filebot) is on the MAS and it requires Java:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/filebot/id905384638?mt=12

They just got around the no external dependency issue by bundling JRE into the .app. Presumably this could be done with .Net apps as well. Not ideal though.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

This would have had more impact a few years ago, when .NET peaked. Since then, other cross platforms tools have emerged.

Such as!?

 

[adversus]

As a faithful Mac User who works in the Microsoft product stack all day-long (Visual Studio, SQL Server), I'll withhold judgement until I see the implementation.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Also my iPad is now as fast as a MacBook Air.

Ahuh, sure it is.... and a lot of Google's Android has always been closed source, and Microsoft has been a beneficiary of (Ripping large portions of the BSD TCP/IP stack in the 90's for NT) and contributor to (SAMBA, Hyper-V drivers in the Linux kernel), open source for quite a while before now...

 

[LogicalVue]

Not what you think

It seems like most of you should have first read the actual MS announcement.

This announcement says that their server-side .NET framework will be eventually able to run on Linux and OS X. Linux matters for servers, but OS X is not all that relevant. This announcement has nothing to do with desktop GUI apps. It's all about the server and enterprise. Relevant quote:

Delivering on its promise to support cross-platform development, Microsoft is providing the full .NET server stack in open source, including ASP.NET, the .NET compiler, the .NET Core Runtime, Framework and Libraries, enabling developers to build with .NET across Windows, Mac or Linux. Through this implementation, Microsoft will work closely with the open source community, taking contributions for future improvements to .NET and will work through the .NET Foundation.

“A strong, open source, cross-platform CLR opens significant new options for building large server-based systems,” said Brian McCallister, chief technology officer, Groupon. “This significantly expands the choices developers have when finding the right tool to solve their problem. I’m very excited to have access to the quality virtual machine and tooling of the CLR without having to completely rework our production infrastructure in order to run it!”

There is also nothing in this announcement about allowing you to write .NET software using a Mac. MS does not have a Mac IDE and I don't expect them to create one either.

This is a good direction for Microsoft and .NET, but unless you are an enterprise software developer using .NET, this announcement will not affect you in any way.