Is Open Source .NET Beneficial?

Good question @stimms - I'm guessing there are two schools of thought here in the enterprise specifically: 1. The "nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft" gang, who, regardless of Open Source or not wil be all over it because now it's sanctioned by the big boys. 2. The ones who detest and mistrust any Open from reasons you describe to the ones that say vulnerabilities are easier to exploit if it's Open. The second group definitely exist in large quantities in the enterprise and may very well start a witch hunt in their origanisations to dig out anything that has gone Open Source. I expect this will be very expensive, and where the sunken cost is too great they will just have to accept it, but handle existing code with kid gloves and new projects may be pushed to other closed platforms. It's a tough one to call, but I expect we'll see which way it goes in the near future.

I'm thinking that more and more companies have/are coming around to OSS, particularly OSS that is actively developed and supported, in the open, but trusted vendors. I suspect that the value of certain licensing options, and/or at the least, the cost savings achieved by access to source/allowing devs to dig in and see what's what have begun to outweight the perceived "risks" associated with Open Source in previous years. Note that "open source" does not mean "free," although that is often an obvious advantage. Not to mention, more and more large corporations are achieving success with a significant portion of their code base consuming OSS libraries. Lastly, more and more exploits are happening in a very public way against software which is (presumably) closed-source. The advantages of the closed licensing model are beginning to decay. I think the more aggressively open source license models ("copy left") may drive away some companies, who aren't looking to publish their IP, particularly when that IP represents a significant revenue driver. In general though, I think the companies in camp #2 in the OP are going to diminish, and I don;t see this impacting MS adoption nearly as much as if they had FAILED to start down the path they are on. Remaining closed/proprietary, for Microsoft, would have meant a continuing slide into irrelevance over the next decase IMHO. It's the right move, at the right time (or maybe a few year after the right time, but timely nonetheless).

The @dotnet folks have posted this timely Infographic on The state of .NET Open Source on GitHub. https://twitter.com/DotNet/status/578933457914466304/photo/1

I have been fortunate enough to work for companies that have not been afraid of using open source tools and frameworks. I did work at one company where my products were put through a fairly vigorous open source audit process. This involved a combination of me telling them what I was using and some fairly sophisticated automated source code analysis. I *think* the purpose of this was to ensure that we were only using open source products with a license that was approved by the company. I have never taken the time to fully understand the implications of various open source licenses. I am curious if anyone else has encountered a similar audit process.

I contracted with one of the large banks for a while. We were allowed to use open source libraries if Microsoft didn't provide an alternative, *but* we had to pull a copy of the code into our codebase so it could be run through special bank compilers that would supposedly catch malicious things.

The only possible downside I could see are those companies who believe open source is insecure. As much as I hate to be dismissive but if your company still believes this, you may be in trouble. These days it's very difficult to run any enterprise without some form of Open Source software. Whether it is more or less secure is probably another discussion entirely, but having recently worked for such a company (I left) I can say it relegates you to costly or old tools and it's a huge burden on the company.

I hope that finding Microsoft on this path says something about the attitude towards OSS from big corporations in general. I have not personally encountered a strict anti open source policy anywhere I have worked, just a healthy and necessary interest in licensing models and the communities surrounding the open source products we used. I think corporations who completely dismiss open source software need to wake up and realize that OSS can help you focus on what actually matters to the business, and to stay competitive. That Microsoft is starting to embrace open source is a great advantage for .NET developers trying to get the companies they work for to show an interest in open source software. If anything I think this will help persuade more people to give OSS a chance.