Microsoft reenfocándose

Una noticia reciente poco comentada, pero quizá importante, ha sido la de abrir .NET y C# a proyectos open source, digamos, en mayor medida de lo hecho anteriormente. Recogido por Mary Jo Foley a comienzos de abril, pocos comentarios más se vieron en casi dos meses. Siguiendo a eWeek, Microsoft anunció en su conferencia Build 2014, sus planes en open source: la creación de una fundación (.NET Foundation), veinticuatro proyectos para iniciar actividades, y la conformación de una dirección integrada por funcionarios de Microsoft, de la subsidiaria Microsoft Open Technologies, y Miguel de Icaza. Entre los proyectos puestos en open source, está .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn"), y un par vinculados a Xamarin, la implementación de Miguel de Icaza de la plataforma de desarrollo.NET para dispositivos Android, iOS y GNU/Linux (el desarrollo completo en el comunicado de la fundación). En eWeek:

Microsoft formed the .NET Foundation to foster further innovation across the .NET ecosystem. The .NET Foundation will start with 24 .NET open-source projects under its stewardship, including the .NET Compiler Platform (previously known as "Roslyn") and the ASP.NET family of open-source projects, as well as the MimeKit and Mailkit libraries from Xamarin.

"We are going to be delivering a preview of the Roslyn compiler as a service," Somasegar said. "The most interesting thing that we're doing there is we are making both our C# compiler and our VB [Visual Basic] compiler open source. You want to be able to work with the community, you want to be able to take contributions back from the community, and you want to be able to work in the open. The other thing we are doing is adding support for .NET in Azure Mobile Services." - 

Tanto de la lectura de los comunicados iniciales, como de los comentarios de Foley o Tim Anderson, se puede decir que lo más importante a la vista es la mayor colaboración con Xamarin e Icaza, y por lo tanto, un frente más en la apuesta por ganar un lugar en las tecnologías móviles. Tim Anderson pone especialmente el acento en este futuro móvil:

The focus now though is on mobile, and interest in C# is stronger, mainly from Microsoft-platform developers reaching beyond Windows. There is also Unity, which uses C# as a scripting language for developing games for multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox, PS3 and Wii – PS4 is coming very soon.
Microsoft has now consciously embraced multiple platforms, as evidenced by Office for iOS as well as the Xamarin collaboration. “We want C#developers to build great applications across different form factors and different device platforms,” said Jay Schmelzer Director of Program Management for Visual Studio.
You might observe that this position has been forced on the company by the rise of iOS and Android, a view which likely has some merit, but the impact it has on C# and .NET itself is still real.

Una nueva acción  en el sentido de adecuarse al rumbo actual y próximo del mercado tecnológico, como los movimientos de apertura de Office o los intentos de mejorar la posición de sus tabletas. ¿Con qué alcance? probablemente, destinado a ofrecer una alternativa al mercado propio en el ajeno de Android o iOS.
¿Hasta qué punto este nuevo lanzamiento es open source?  Si atendemos al inicio, en cuanto al carácter abierto de la fundación, su directiva es casi completamente Microsoft:

The new foundation will be initially staffed by Microsoft and third parties, including a representative from the Microsoft Open Technologies subsidiary and someone from the .NET organization, as well as Miguel de Icaza, CTO and co-founder of Xamarin, which is partnering with Microsoft on a related effort, Somasegar said.
"There will be a board of directors," he said. "There are going to be a couple of people from Microsoft that are going to be on the board. There will be one person from MS Open Tech that's going to be on the board; there will be one person from the .NET team that will be on the board. We are also getting Miguel de Icaza to be on the board, so we'll have at least one third-party person on the board from Day 1. And we'll have a couple of third-party projects, including efforts from Xamarin and others. Our plan is, over time, to expand the board to include more people. There will be a board that will govern the .NET Foundation. Microsoft will initially have a strong presence, but it will not be exclusively Microsoft."

Mi primera impresión fue de sorpresa, ya en que demasiadas ocasiones las grandes empresas mandan a open source los productos que dejan de ser centrales en sus proyectos: una manera de reducir fondos a un producto que no está en sus planes, descargando en una comunidad el esfuerzo futuro de desarrollo. Sin embargo, en este caso, existe un deseo de mantener un control estricto sobre la conducción de la fundación, y existe un área de sumo interés futuro. En los artículos de Foley hay parecidas impresiones:

I have to admit that I wasn't sure if Microsoft's decision to open-source more of .Net would be met by cheers or jeers by those attending Build last week. I was curious if developers might see the move as an indicator that Microsoft no longer considered .Net valuable enough to keep in-house as part of its collection of crown jewels. Most of the devs with whom I spoke at the show seemed upbeat about the move, however.
Hejlsberg told attendees of a press panel during Build that Microsoft is not abandoning .Net.
"We are actively investing in .Net going forward," Hejlsberg said, in response to an audience question as to whether Microsoft was putting .Net on the back burner.
"It's not going away," Hejlsberg said. "We are all in on .Net."

El tiempo, más rápidamente que lo que nos podríamos pensar, irá diciendo a dónde va esta iniciativa. La competencia actual no da lugar a muchas dudas.