back to article Microsoft snubs Codeplex, moves big projects to GitHub

Microsoft has completed the move of Roslyn, the next-generation open source compiler for C# and Visual Basic, from CodePlex to GitHub. Program Manager Kasey Uhlenhuth explains that the Roslyn team is not only moving the repository, but also switching to git internally. “We are moving our code to GitHub as well as switching to …

  1. JDX Gold badge

    Using an open-source tool in preference to their own product? Ouch. They used to use Perforce for Windows OS development as well during the VSS era.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They're already playing catch-up - they don't want to hinder themselves any further by using their own products!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Too much politics in developing your own tools for internal use.

      Use a 3rd party tool and you get SLAs and other such things. You're not then taking developers away from producing revenue generating development just to look at a bug for someone.

    3. Mike Dimmick

      Re: Perforce

      My understanding is that Windows still uses Source Depot, which is a fork of Perforce. That replaced a home-grown tool in late 2000, during XP development.

      Mind you, historically, the Windows team have always thought that anything that came out of DevDiv was crap. There's a reason they started over with Windows Runtime rather than continue with WPF or Silverlight, and why very little was ever done with MFC or Windows Forms.

  2. beast666

    Visual Studio online supports git perfectly well.

    1. dogged

      That line confused me as well. TFS also supports git perfectly well, as you'd expect since visualstudio.com is (basically) just hosted TFS.

      The author seems to be saying "look, this product isn't very good. THEREFORE ALL THEIR OTHER PRODUCTS MUST SUCK TOO" which isn't actually logical. That's like saying "Revels are disgusting and Mars make them so look, Mars bars and Minstrels and (er, racks brain) Twix must be disgusting too!"

      Which they're not. Unless you get the American version where they put dog shit in their chocolate by law.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Have you actually used TFS?

        I'm not surprised they're moving away from it, and it's about time they're moving away from their "not invented here" mindset and are finally trying (or appearing) to work like we in the real world do.

        1. dogged

          Yes, I am actually using it right now. As ALM it's pretty good. If the source control doesn't suit you, you can go for git instead and retain the ALM functionality including the reports and the sharepoint publication of progress data to what we are forced to call "stakeholders".

          You don't like it? de gustibus. I find it incredibly flexible and (at the current price of "free for home use/hobbyist use/SME <5devs use) pretty good value.

          Did you have a specific criticism or is this just another complaint that makes you look like a supercool leet d00d who knows everything without any actual basis?

        2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          re: Have you actually used TFS?

          TFS does do a brilliant job of not being VSS

          visualstudio.com though is a disaster. Half the TFS features dont' work and the other half tell you to use the admin console to perform them - which would be handy if MSFT posted the admin password for visualstudio.com

          1. dogged

            Re: re: Have you actually used TFS?

            TFS Express is your friend.

            (I know, but actually, it really is).

      2. TheVogon

        "American version where they put dog shit in their chocolate by law"

        I thought it was dried vomit? That's what Hershey's tastes like anyway.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'It will be so worth it'

    Toadally

  4. J. R. Hartley

    Forkmann?

    Really??

    Really???

  5. IGnatius T Foobar

    Microsoft FAIL

    This is good news. Now I'd really be impressed if they discontinued SharePoint (everywhere).

    1. Adam 1

      Re: Microsoft FAIL

      Eadon?

    2. dogged

      Re: Microsoft FAIL

      You can actually do some pretty amazing stuff with SharePoint. Personally, I loathe and despise the "web parts" widgets but you can write MVC5 against it now which makes it less like skindiving in sewage.

      For a multi-function intranet platform with AD integration, it works. And some of the mad shit you can do with it makes it worth learning.

      DISCLAIMER - this may come across as unwarranted enthusiasm but until recently I never saw the point of SharePoint at all. Then I integrated our TFS with it because the boss told me to. Then I noticed I could easily produce customisable sites to allow internal and external clients to "buy in" by giving them access to our burndown charts and tests so they could follow progress, and also feature request/bug report stuff so we could stay on top of what they wanted instead of having random lists of unprioritised crap around the place.

      So I did that and learned even more crazy stuff I could easily do with it and I'm still kicking myself for not bothering with it four years ago.

      Apart from anything else, it pays really well.

  6. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Pirate

    Yummy...

    Your dogfood looks tastier than mine.

    Wow, MS is now using a tool that more or less comes from Linus for their VS stuff? Am I reading this right, or am I missing something?

    Is their next trick to somehow wrap Active Directory in an eDirectory back end? Or turn all of Word2015 into a WordPerfect macro? Maybe make qvwm the desktop for Windows 10?

    The world just got a bit stranger.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yummy...

      Yep. Linus made git himself, for the Linux kernel team. He even named it after himself.

  7. thames

    CodePlex never had much success

    Codeplex was always a ghost town and all the real action was elsewhere. Microsoft established it to try to create an open source "ecosystem" around their products that they controlled. They tried priming the pump with some of their own projects, but it never really caught on.

    That Microsoft has finally given up and admitted defeat shows that a dose of reality is beginning to seep into Redmond. A public code repository isn't much use without a community of developers, and Codeplex never really had one and the quality of third party projects there was pretty poor.

    As for Git itself, it's pretty much all anybody uses these days for new or migrating projects. For Microsoft to not use it would be to just continue to isolate themselves from the mainstream.

    Microsoft also created their own foundation, called the "Codeplex Foundation" (the name was later changed to "Outercurve") to challenge the Apache Foundation and the Software Freedom Conservancy. The Codeplex Foundation was intended to provide a vehicle for Microsoft to control and direct open source development and licensing, which more or less tells you that they had the wrong mindset to succeed. This has also been a big flop, and it's the next thing that needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: CodePlex never had much success

      In other words it was typical I-have-my-kids-brainwashed-Ballmer-type thinking.

  8. charlesy

    Yawn. Microsoft seems happy, at a corporate level, to leave decisions like this to individual teams, so there are a range of approaches across the company. The use of GitHub has been a big feature of the Microsoft world for several years now, so this really isn't news. CodePlex was a step, several years ago, on Microsoft's evolutionary path to adopting open source, and its main benefit at the time was that it offered a TFS-based forge in the days before TFS supported Git. GitHub is a much bigger world, and Microsoft doesn't appear to be investing significantly in CodePlex, which is understandable. There have been a few welcome changes in recent times including Git support and a GPL3 option. Big deal. Yawn. Move on.

    @thames - Microsoft cut the Codeplex , now Outercurve, Foundation free years ago. Not their animal to shoot, anymore. The Outercurve Foundation certainly isn't trying to 'control and direct open source development and licensing' these days, and I don't think they ever were back in the days of the Codeplex Foundation. People claim all kinds of conspiracy theories when it comes to Microsoft, but they generally don't stack up.

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