Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Developer Division, has announced that ASP.NET MVC and the Microsoft-related projects that will now be developed in the open, using the Apache license, is available on CodePlex with the new Git support.
ASP.NET MVC, Microsoft’s web application framework, has openly origin since its first version, and was switched to Microsoft permissive license in 2009. But there is a difference between open development and only open source (as the following Android development will be well aware). Previously, the source exists, but its development was Microsoft only concern, one was not able to suggest amendments or contributions of their own, and little ability to comment on the work that Microsoft did.
The new development model, developers will be able to see the product as it is created, right down to individual code changes, bug fixes and new features. Perhaps most tellingly of all, for the first time Microsoft will accept patches and third party submissions to the product. If you have a fix for a defect or code for a new function, you can see it integrated into the mainline ASP.NET MVC trees. The first update is already accepted. This patch came from Miguel de Icaza, founder of Mono, open source implementation of. NET stack.
In addition to the open development of ASP.NET MVC, Microsoft has also opened up the source and development of two closely related projects: ASP.NET Web API and ASP.NET Web Pages v2 (Razor).
This is the second project that Microsoft has operated in this way. Windows Azure SDK for the company’s cloud computing services is also an open project, available at github, which allows third-party contributions.
Microsoft will continue to be the final arbiters of what gets integrated and what not, and ASP.NET MVC will remain a supported Microsoft developed framework. The closer community involvement will provide a system that is more responsive to developers’ needs and more innovative to boot.
