Comments on: Microsoft's stingy DreamSpark program

Redmond proves, yet again, that it is stuck in the 20th century. Alas, Mr. Gates, the day of placating developers with tools is over.

[Arnav]

Man you really need to get off your high horse. Jeez you are embarrassing your self, although I am sure you dont realize it. You talk of Microsoft as if being dead buried and gone and Bill Gates a person struggling to pay his rent. He is still the richest person in the world and Microsoft does billions of dollars of business. I wonder how much dollars of business your company does. When you get to be as rich as Bill Gates or your company makes as much money as Microsoft, pass judgments.
Jeez in your blind hatred for all proprietary software you have lost all sight of objectivity. Stop using a review and news sight for pushing your agenda. You are disgusting for a person who is supposed to review and provide news. Before you try to squirm away saying this is a blog please realize where you are posting it (CNET.com). If you like Open Source good for you but please try to sell your point on something not by pointing out problems but show off your strenghts in your model. All your posts, you bash I am good they are evil. Jeez man they are making a living for themselves, nothing evil about it. Get off your moral high horse because you have no right to sit on one. Just because you work on Open Source doesnt make you a good person but abusing your power as a blogger to blatantly pushing your own agenda makes you a sicko. You need a break man, heck go make some software or something because I dont think you do considering the frequency of your blogs.

[KIFulgore]

Poetic words do not help an asinine argument. Visual Studio is still the leading (and best) general dev environment on the market, period. None of the free IDEs even come close (no, not even Dev-C++). And for game programmers, MS's DirectX API is the only viable development library. It left OpenGL light years in the dirt years ago.

I (sort of) see your point, but I don't see MS open-sourcing Office or Windows any time soon. You see, my dear friend, Microsoft would not be in the position to make any money from its software if the full source were available for free.

[Remo_Williams]

Umm, Eclipse-using developers would beg to differ with your dopey VS statement.

[mercnboy3]

Clearly remarks of an MS hater b/c of their history of trying to turn a 'profit'. I am by no means an evangelist for MS. I actually use and prefer java for my development. However, I have used MS tools many times and they are head and shoulders above open source competition. I have used eclipse for years and netbeans to a lesser extent and neither one of them come close to visual studio in terms of productivity and usability IMO. I haven't used them but I have heard that their latest tools or even better. So hooray for MS giving stuff away for free. Maybe the open source community will get some inspiration by kicking the tires a bit on MS' applications.

[jaykayman]

I gotta disagree with you Matt. You're basically saying that the only viable future for software producers (individuals and companies) is to give away what they make for free to everyone. I just don't see that a 100% ad-supported SW industry or a 100% communal software repository is likel to happen or for that matter, what we want to happen.

I think the industry will become a mix of FOSS and for-sale software will be our future and I think that is good. This future mirrors other creative industries - cinema, publishing, music, etc. where people can give what they produce away for free and they can sell what they produce for income. CNET is an ad-supported business - that's fine. I don't think it is rationale or insightful for me to say to CNET, Wall St. Journal, etc. should just give away everything they produce for free. CNET does that because they have chosen an ad-supported business model. Other publishers, are just as free to say that they want to charge for their content as oppposed to splash ads everywhere. In my mind one viable business model (ad-supported) does not make any other busines model null and void and the history of the publishing world backs that conjecture up.

I think this is a appropriate move, but whenever MS gives something away they seem to get hammered by goverments. Seems like they are taken to court if they give stuff away and critized in the community if the don't.

Lastly, there are still many more successful companies selling software than giving it away - Apple, Adobe, Oracle, IBM. Both approaches are viable.

[ss_Whiplash]

"developers already have exceptional development tools available under open-source licenses"

I disagree completely. I've been digging into Linux IDE's and other toolsets for the past month or so for a project I'm working on and what a nightmare it is. The mismash of half completed and flat out buggy programming tools, abandoned projects, competing libraries, and general lack of organized documentation is enough to drive a person insane. Having used Visual Studio for years and dabbled in XCode, it's obvious to me that the open source community has failed to produce the same level of quality product that for profit companies have.

[Remo_Williams]

You clearly don't like Apache, JBoss, Sugar CRM, or Alfresco. Also, I suspect you don't know how to read source code or browse build libraries either.

[JasonCe]

Couldn't disagree more. There are too many incorrect assumptions and FUD in this article that it is hard to choose where to start... Though many people who submitted comments above try to correct those.

I don't expect CNET bloggers to always think like I do, but I expect them to be objective, free of zealotry. This article is a new low in CNET. Please go blog on slashdot, I am sure they will love you. Free thinkers do not want to see you here.

[Stephen Russell]

Matt you crack me up. Open Source tools are usually fair at best when you apply a ratio against the volume out there.

"These days, dear Mr. Gates, you must give away the core. No one is interested in mere complements anymore. " Sorry but what I want is a working environment that is feature rich, allowing me the ability to the the job at hand. I don't give a flip on the owners religion nor on the environment of the infrastructure. Somebody is responsible for those decisions and all I am asked to do is make it so #1.

Why don't you tell the world they are going to hell for NOT USING OPEN SOURCE. You come across as declaring that we are all sinners.

Get a grip.

[heislord5]

I like open source.

[42istheanswer]

Not to sound like a parrot here, but VS rocks. It is WAY better than any other IDE, open or proprientary. I've tried the open source cr@p and I don't like spending a week trying to get the thing to work. With M$ VS, it just does.

[Remo_Williams]

tiring commentary to pair the specious arguments in the blog post.

The market leader for app servers is WebLogic, then Websphere, and much later down the line JBoss/Tomcat. It's not open source.

The market leader for OS is Windows, not Linux.

The market leader for etc is not open-sourced, either: databases, document management, financial management software like SAP, email servers, et cetera.

There's Apache and then... nothing. Extol the virtues of GiMP while I stifle a yawn, spin a yarn about how great Linux is while not connecting to the corporate message server, meanwhile, I'm getting work done.

-R

[seo2seo]

Open source IS the future, and Bill Gates' attitude is outmoded and will be doomed. But it will be a long time before open source *in general* competes with proprietary software.

It will come, I have zero doubt. But being triumphalist is premature. Even IE still commands a majority; Word is still far and away market leader, and even now, Windows shows no real signs of surrendering to Linux (despite the pathos that is Vista).

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven". ... and for Open Source, Spring is in the air. But that's all.

[xencoder]

I hate to break it to you, but as the originating article stated, this isn't a "new" program. It's been in place for a few years already for college students. It's simply being expanded.

And not to sound as much of an apologist as other commenters here, but:

A) Having more than a passing knowledge of the XCode IDE ( and Objective-C )

B) Having more than a passing knowledge of a various open source frameworks ( wxWidgets, Qt, to name the two most well known ones ), as well as associated IDE's ( In the case of Qt, KDevelop principally )

C) Having 20 years in the business of developing software commercially.

I have to say that you're misguided. I understand every argument Linus ( and Richard Stallman ) have/has made, and the fact is that for the most part, most open source products are left wanting.

[MithunD]

Matt, you are such a dim wit! Your ignorance is unbelievable. I am surprised CNET is hiring fools like you to write articles. There is something called as 'Research' that you need to do before writing a stupid article like that. Get your facts right and then talk about how great the Open Source tools are. For Crying out loud, Visual Studio is one of the best selling infact it's THE best developer tools IDE that is out there. The program of giving free software to Students has been there for a long time, we just expanded the program and added the latest and greatest tools, platform and design products to the mix. Your article makes it sound like Microsoft is a doomed yesteryear company..have you seen our Revenue sheets? Have you seen our Market Capitalization, Have you seen the contributions made by VS and other Developer tools to the MS stock? I am just appalled by your sheer ignorance!

I pity your pea sized brain! *******!

-Mithun Dhar

[drhowarddrfine]

Well, guys, I hate to break the news to you but VS is hardly any "world leader" in editors and you'll find many more using vi/vim or emacs than VS. And if you think MS isn't wide eyed about their competition with Google, think again.

Microsoft doesn't matter anymore and those of us who are "real" developers know it. Just because guys like 42isthe answer needs a point and click solution, doesn't mean those of us who know how computers really work need anything else.

[WillyWiggler]

drhowarddrfine -

"Real" developers don't need good tools? What planet are you from? Great developers care about getting things done quickly & efficiently. If a commercial tool helps a Great dev be more productive, then I could care less if they meet your standards of "Real". And if a dev on my team refused to use such a tool on the principle that "real" developers don't need tools, they would be fired!

I'll admit that Eclipse is great Java IDE. But for a multi-language IDE targeting the windows, Visual Studio is a great, mature product.

CNet - why does this Matt Asay have space on your website? This rant was the dubmest thing I've read in a long time (modulo cnet comment sections of course).

[jharrop2]

My little project uses an open source stack on the server, and a Word 2007 add-in as its client (developed using Visual Studio + VSTO).

The server stuff I can deliver as a free virtual appliance to any developer who wants it. Not so, unfortunately, at the client end. See my blog post http://dev.plutext.org/blog/2008/02/21/vmware-appliance-lands/ for the full rant.

Matt has a point.