Microsoft’s .NET Micro Framework is free and open source now

Microsoft announced at its Professional Developer Conference about the release of version 4.0 under the Apache 2.0 license. The license would make the popular .NET code base available as open source.

According to Peter Galli in his blog post, that Microsoft reduced some of the framework’s functionality to make the Software Developer’s Kit open source.Mr. Peter Galli is the Open Source Community Manager for Microsoft’s Platform Strategy Group. Galli wrote that Microsoft pulled the framework’s cryptography libraries and also stripped out its TCP/IP stack because it contains third-party software licensed from EBSnet.

Bill Weinberg, principal analyst at LinuxPundit.com, told Linux Insider “While the Micro Framework constitutes only a small part of the total .Net corpus, it is a significant step forward in making Redmond’s ubiquitous framework more available and interoperable with other FOSS code,”

According to Galli, The .NET Micro Framework is a development and execution environment for resource-constrained devices. It is well-used in embedded devices with low-powered processors having a limited amount of RAM.

He noted that initially the framework was developed inside the Microsoft Startup Business Accelerator but was moved to the Developer Division to be more closely aligned with the overall direction of Microsoft development efforts.

Galli further wrote “The result of this is that the .NET Micro Framework has become a seamless development experience, bringing a single programming model and tool chain for the breadth of developer solutions, all the way from small intelligent devices to servers and the cloud. There are also no more time-limited versions.”

He explained that, Microsoft’s decision to include the source code for almost the entire product ensures that developers now get access to the Base Class Libraries that were implemented for .NET Micro Framework and the Common Language Runtime (CLR) code itself, and he added. CLR is a core component of Microsoft’s .NET initiative.

Galli further explained Microsoft did not include the cryptography libraries in the source code because they are used outside of the scope of the .Net Micro Framework. Microsoft plans to remain active as a community partner to continue developing the framework. The license allows customers to develop their own specialized versions of the framework.

Galli said “As such, we are planning on establishing a core technology team that is made up of both Microsoft and non-Microsoft contributors that continues the goals of producing a high-quality product for very small devices. This group will act as the gateway to community contributions while, at the same time, Microsoft Developers will continue to add functionality and coordinate with the overall .NET team,”

And he noted that Microsoft also have plans to form a community of involved members to help shape the future direction of the framework product. This will include a core technology team composed of external partners and Microsoft. People will be encouraged to propose projects, which will be vetted before they are accepted.

Program Manager Colin Miller told Galli,”The site will also support people building extensions that exist alongside the platform rather than being integrated into it,”

According to Weinberg, the Micro Framework will only help developers and integrators of resource-constrained embedded systems and not the larger communities building more robust intelligent devices, desktop and enterprise applications.

Weinberg concluded “Unlike GNU, GPL and LGPL employed by Mono, Apache is not a copy left license and allows use of source code for both proprietary and FOSS derivation and deployment. While OEMs, integrators and others are today mostly comfortable with the disclosure requirements imposed by GNU licenses, their legal departments still cleave to closely held IPR, potentially giving .NET Micro Framework advantage over its traditional FOSS rival, Mono”.