GitHub users speak their brains on Microsoft's open-source efforts: ASP.NET shines, but WPF is 'a disaster'

Microsoft has open-sourced many of its developer frameworks but the success of these projects is variable, with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) dubbed "a disaster" by one unhappy developer. This week, the company published a survey of developers on GitHub using some of its .NET open-source repositories, including ASP.NET …

[Pascal Monett]

"internally the WPF team was not sufficiently staffed"

Right, that means that there is one guy swamped in work, but he was only given a laptop, he has no server to test on and his office is on the other side of the building from the toilets and the coffee machine.

On top of that, there are daily 90-minute meetings to discuss progress.

Yup, things are going swimmingly.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

Re: "internally the WPF team was not sufficiently staffed"

I'd also guess that he's not actually working full time on this, either, and his main project remains the thing his managers actually care about...

Why WPF still exists, given how little Micros~1 seems to care about it, is a mystery to me.

[gobaskof]

"That said, Microsoft is more than capable of managing open-source projects and its Visual Studio Code repository is, according to GitHub's report, the project with the most contributors across the entirety of GitHub."

Yes, but also no. Something like an code editor is about the easiest thing to get contributions on. First all of your users by definition are programmers, secondly the ramifications of a change are not that deep to other peoples applications. VS Code may be well run. However, running a projects for a piece of software where you accept lots of fun features (like a new dark theme, syntax highlighting, or a whizzy widget to count something), is very different from running project for a library that is core to numerous developers programs. For this you really need far more of a deep conversation to happen about the ramifications of the changes.

Even I have had patches accepted into a code editor (Syntax highlighting definition for Kate), no one in their right mind would accept my code into an important system library. Simple contributor numbers is not a good metric to assess open-source management.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree, but don't forget that for Microsoft in particular, it doesn't have to be that way. VS Code does _NOT_ have so many contributions because GitHub is owned by Oracle.

The Chrome browser didn't catch on because it was outstanding to start, it caught on because Google pushed it through their Search platform. Microsoft now owns a source code channel (GitHub) that they can push any project through just like Google did with Chrome using Search However, you're currently correct (at least I believe) as Microsoft hasn't fired a bullet into their new channel just yet because, it appears they *think* VS Code is the equivalent to source code as what Chrome is to a web browser... which it isn't (not unless it starts stealing people's code).

KDE is obviously a different story from Google or MIcrosoft, but in some aspects project contributions that added "new" functionalities really did make certain projects "happen". For instance, is there a more advanced default browser than Dolphin? Undoubtedly no. Is there a more advanced default GUI editor than Kate? I don't think there is. But, I wouldn't be surprised if ALL proposed syntax highlighting patches were rejected as Kate has long, long accepted user defined highlighting. With any more features desired from Kate, then one might want to start looking at Code::Blocks and various other IDES more suited.

[Steve Davies 3]

GitHub owned by Oracle?

When this Larry's gang get invited to the party?

I'm sure that it is Microsoft but it does not matter.

Both are as bad a the other one.

I see MS's problem as that are trying to do doo much with limited resources. Spread too thinly.

The result is everything is in a perpetual 'Beta' state. The Marketing people are in my mind to blame.

Microsoft Marketing... The depatment of thousands of ideas that are all doomed to fail but at least they tried them all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Upvoted

For being a Kate contributor ♥

[Robert Grant]

That said, Microsoft is more than capable of managing open-source projects and its Visual Studio Code repository is, according to GitHub's report, the project with the most contributors across the entirety of GitHub.

How many of those are Microsoft staffers?

[Anonymous Coward]

With real problems and suggestions for feature requests... very, very few.

Anyone that takes a look will notice a tall pillar of reports and suggestions by non-MSers with a sprinkle of "official" responses/accepts interleaved. The "official" people seem to give up, as the majority of their comments are within 36 hours then they kind of just wander off to not return for months. This is very well known for those who have browsed the repo for even a weeks time, but I have yet to see even the most cynical "news" sites post about it (I guess $$$$ talks).

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the guy who designed WPF left Microsoft years ago and its basically been abandoned ever since..

[StrangerHereMyself]

And Windows CE was (and maybe still is) being staffed by interns as Microsoft had more or less abandoned it.

[Michael B.]

No Entity framework 6 I see in that report

the dev response on that repo there is either F - Off or ignore you completely.

[Steve Channell]

WPF is blocked behind the port of DirectX

Once https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/directx-heart-linux/ has been completed, WPF some love

[StrangerHereMyself]

Discourage WPF ports to Linux / Mac

I believe MS is deliberately discouraging ports of WPF to Linux and Mac by under-staffing the WPF open-source support ream, since these could give rise to a cross-platform desktop app ecosystem, which is something they don't want.

WPF essentially runs on top of DirectX. It should be possible to swap out all the calls to DirectX and replace them with OpenGL calls. And voila, you have WPF apps running on Linux and MacOS X. Most desktop apps would run on all three platforms without even a recompile.

[Sin2x]

Re: Discourage WPF ports to Linux / Mac

Your assumption is incorrect. WPF is simply a dead technology and there is no need to continue investing time and money in it. It was born dead, actually.

If you need modern cross-platform UIs across Windows, Linux, MacOS and later mobile, use Avalonia.

[serendipity]

Re: Discourage WPF ports to Linux / Mac

But Avalonia is based on XAML which was introduced as part of WPF. So maybe WPF isn't such a "dead technology" after all!!

[Sin2x]

Re: Discourage WPF ports to Linux / Mac

Well, we can imagine its dead carcass being the food and foundation of the new iteration of technology, that's true. But who would continue supporting a dead carcass and why?

[serendipity]

Re: Discourage WPF ports to Linux / Mac

I think you're being too dramatic which suggests to me that you've never had to pick a UI framework for developing a real LOB application that's expected to be delivered to tight timescales, be reliable and last for years. As a developer, you need something rock solid you can depend on and ideally with the added comfort in the knowledge that thousands of businesses have used it successfully over many years to deliver similar applications to yours. It's rare that you get that with open source UI frameworks. They're great and interesting and all that, but I'd think twice before betting the farm on one.

Right, I'll go back to the trenches now ;))

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Discourage WPF ports to Linux / Mac

WPF was "dead" because customers didn't like to be locked-into Windows desktop apps and wanted multi-platform web-based applications (never mind that the web server ran ASP.NET on Windows Server).

However, if WPF becomes multi-platform it's a whole other ball-game. Then suddenly WPF suddenly isn't such a bad solution for some applications, such as CAD or video / graphics.

I agree it's not useful for all types of applications (since web development has most LOB apps covered), but for some types there is no substitute for a desktop app.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Discourage WPF ports to Linux / Mac

"I believe MS is deliberately discouraging ports of WPF to Linux and Mac by under-staffing the WPF open-source support ream, since these could give rise to a cross-platform desktop app ecosystem, which is something they don't want."

Maybe but then why would they go to all the trouble to support WPF on .Net Core (which you know is cross platform, right?)

You do know Steve Ballmer is no longer in charge at MS! ;))

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Discourage WPF ports to Linux / Mac

Depends on your definition of cross-platform. It works on Windows, but not on Mac or Linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Discourage WPF ports to Linux / Mac

.NET Core is a free and open-source, managed computer software framework for Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. It is a cross-platform successor to .NET Framework.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Core

Now what were you saying?

[Smartypantz]

Fuck the GAFAM! They will strive to rule your thoughts in any way possible!

Cloud computing corrupts the GPL!