zlacker

There are parts of Microsoft that understand open source. Most parts of the Windows team ain’t that (exceptions apply). Reading this saddens me a lot as he clearly got screwed. But this is why any project with momentum should consider growing its community and maybe forming a foundation.

For example, Homebrew and its community/infrastructure is better than and bigger than anything Apple could ever do (and we know how they run Mac App Store to begin with).

When the author said “Microsoft would hire me, AppGet would come with me, and they would decide if they wanted to rename it something else” , I can immediately tell that’s not how you do OSS. That would be betraying to your users and maintainers.

Did Microsoft ask Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza to bring Mono with them to kill/rename it? No, that’s not what happened. And thats how significant open source projects/communities should work; not controlled by a single person.

>>alpb+(OP)
Just to be clear, I was very clear with them during our conversation that it would only happen if they committed to keeping the spirit of AppGet (which they did)

I might be wrong, but I don't think to have MS behind a project like that causing it exponentially grow was a betrail of users.

>>alpb+(OP)
Not everyone is able or willing to develop large-scale open-source community/project.. Also, mono is a much large and more significant project that runs on Linux, not a Windows app.

>>alpb+(OP)
> Did Microsoft ask Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza to bring Mono with them to kill/rename it? No, that’s not what happened.

Visual Studio for Mac is sort of a renamed version of MonoDevelop...

>>alpb+(OP)
MacPorts (né DarwinPorts) was created by Apple engineers long before the App Store existed. IMHO it’s superior to Homebrew in just about every way, existed long before Homebrew and targets the same audience (unlike the App Store which is targeting a very different population).

If you haven’t looked at MP lately, it’s worth reviewing.

>>a-niko+j2
Mono also runs on Windows

>>jonhoh+qc
I’ve just switched from MP to HomeBrew. I’m interested in why do you think MP is superior?

>>alpb+(OP)
>There are parts of Microsoft that understand open source. Most parts of the Windows team ain’t that

The story goes that the new Microsoft understands open source at the top. A windows package manager is such an essential component of the operating system that it is visible at the top. Even more, Github, npm - package managers are at the core of their strategy.

How big is the risk that the new Microsoft is just lip service and they won't respect the GitHub and npm community either?

>>jonhoh+qc
Used it in the days it required everything to run as root (Sudo). Then discovered homebrew and have never looked back. Every package I've looked at is better maintained on brew. Why do you think MP is superior?

>>alpb+(OP)
Nobody at Microsoft understands open source. The people who pretend to understand are just glorified sales people pretending to be developers promoting every new Microsoft product regardless how shit it is or how much better other competing products are (you know who these sales people are).

Microsoft loves OSS as much as they are able to control it. They are like an abusive partner who "love you" for as long as they control every step of your life but as soon as you step aside they'll grab a hammer and smash you in the face.

>>aryono+st
Installing packages for your system as a non-root user is fairly broken and Homebrew jumps through a number of questionable hoops to make this work.

>>jonhoh+qc
MacPorts still has a number of Apple engineers contributing to it, although it is no longer an Apple-sponsored project and I have no idea if they are doing so in any professional capacity.

Homebrew, interestingly, has been moving towards an App Store-esque “binary distribution platform” for a while now.

>>saagar+bE
Binary distribution is not bad, it's heaps better than forcing everyone to recompile the very same software again and again on their own laptops. See also Nix.

>>saagar+SD
Like chown-ing /usr/local to what is supposed to be a non privileged user, reducing this security of everything in there. It’s like people don’t realize there’s a reason port (and apt and dnf and pretty much every package manager) requires “sudo” to install software. Homebrew has always felt poorly thought out to me and every time I try to use it again I come across some broken package that works fine in port.

>>dustin+Dw
Disagree. Clearly you don’t work on OSS as your primary job and you don’t know enough teams/people at MSFT.

>>dustin+Dw
Micorsoft loves OSS as much as they are able to profit off it. Did they spend $7.5B buying github for the love of ideals?

And sure enough they understand OSS for what it is better than anyone else. Thank you, creative person, here is your exposure.

>>wereHa+oK
MacPorts does not force you to do that. Homebrew on the other hand pushes you strongly towards their precompiled binaries, and they have steadily removed customizability of what gets installed on your machine as a result because they don't want to shoulder the added complexity on their side (as they'd need to provide binaries for all the options…)

>>lysium+8g
It includes a lot of Unixy “deep cuts” that aren’t in homebrew, it doesn’t stretch an unrelated analogy into its own jargon (brew, cask, etc.), it easily allows variants of builds when the defaults won’t do, it stays sandboxed in its own namespace by default, etc.

The original problem the brew developers seemed to have with MacPorts (no binary distribution) is now resolved and MP retains all of the flexibility of a source-based package manager.

I also “like” sudoing package installation/removal of system packages. It’s no different from any other Unix package manager. If I’m the only user, I can chown /opt/local Or install to my home directory and run MP without sudo.