+1 SubSonic
+1 Subtext
+1 Subversion??
+1 NUnit
If we are looking at shear usefulness, I would have to say that the only OSS .NET package I actually use is Paint.NET. It is extremely powerful and well worth your consideration.
In simple terms, my nomination is Paint.NET. Done.
Long list of worthy projects. My votes:
SubSonic
Commerce Starter Kit
dasBlog
SubSonic (http://subsonicproject.com/)
JayRock (.net json parser - very lovely :: http://jayrock.berlios.de/)
NUnit, SharpDevelop and Paint.NET if applicable.
Lucene .NET port. Probably the best open source software library I’ve used. A few good engineers could build something based on Lucene in a month which would rival something like Autonomy which costs 100s of thousands of $$$ to license. But still there are lots of IR algorithms NOT in Lucene yet, that should get put into it.
Frans wrote:
“In fact, the whole MS platform eco system isn’t suitable for open source tools to become very effective.”
bingbingbing We have a winner.
If you really want to make OSS more prevalent on the .NET platform, this is the problem that needs to be attacked. There are things you can do with money that would help with that, but I don’t see chucking money at the most successful apps being one of them.
How about something like setting up a SourceForge equivalent for .NET apps? Perhaps its not the best idea, but that’s the kind of idea that should be looked at; something that helps make OSS developers more productive, and/or helps interested users find projects they might be interested in.
However, any progress you make is liable to be totally undone the next time some lawyer in some arm of Microsoft gets it in their head to attack OSS again. I don’t see anything your $10K is gonna be able to do about that.
I vote for Video Postbox! Not on Sourceforge yet but I know the developer is thinking about opening it up!
http://sqlite.phxsoftware.com/ deserves some recognition. Its the best .NET provider for SQLite.
NxBRE, a .NET rules engine ( http://sf.net/projects/nxbre )
So here you have all of these people raving about the OSS projects/products that are making their lives easier and I just have to wonder how many of them have contributed anything at all to these projects themselves?
Do we need Jeff to go out and get a list so that HE can contribute something on our behalf? How many of you who raved about Paint.NET actually clicked on the “donate” link and sent in a few dollars? BTW, I have.
Get off of your lazy butts and do this yourself instead of bashing Microsoft for not contributing to the tools that YOU say are helping YOU save time and money!
“I find Paint.NET userful and think it’s a great program. Why isn’t Microsoft paying them money so that I can continue to use it for free?”. Sheesh!
BTW… can someone please flip Subsonic a quarter so that they can change their “catch phrase” so that it is at least grammatically correct? I’m certainly no expert on grammar but seeing stuff like that just makes me want to run away. Far away…
+1 for NUnit. Besides your noble initiative this post provides an additional benefit: the comments are a great place to get an overview over the latest collection of useful tools. Maybe worth a post by itself…
Michael Schwarz’s Ajax.NET Professional
Mono Project !!!
I vote for NUnit, RhinoMocks and Subversion.
"BTW… can someone please flip Subsonic a quarter so that they can change their “catch phrase” so that it is at least grammatically correct? I’m certainly no expert on grammar but seeing stuff like that just makes me want to run away. Far away… " Matt
Matt Please See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us
You’ve hit the nail squarely on the head. Microsoft doesn’t believe in Open Source because they look at Open Source as a competitor to the way they do business.
Every once in a while, Microsoft will start going through the motions of supporting Open Source, but then either Microsoft loses interest or some sort of power struggle took place, and strategic plans get changed. Part of the problem is the natural suspicion that many Open Source people (especially Linux users) have with Microsoft, but much of that is the suspicion Microsoft has with the Open Source community. To many managers at Microsoft, Open Source is a communistic movement which is out to destroy our American/Microsoft way of life.
Other major companies like Google, IBM, and even Sun actually not only provide financial support for the Open Source community (like Google’s Summer of Code), but hire employees whose primary job it is just to work on Open Source projects. It’s not that these companies are being altruistic. It’s that their business strategy is dependent upon Open Source.
IBM is dropping it’s own version of Unix, AIX, in favor of Linux. Google depends upon its own versions of the various Open Source tools to keep its servers up and running. And, of course, Solaris was originally based upon BSD, and most of the networking tools Sun needs are Open Source tools.