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Comment by swang | Hacker News Reader

1. Microsoft 2. Not open source

> Microsoft

I don't see anything that says that this is a Microsoft product. It looks like a side project by a Microsoft employee. (full disclosure: I work at MS.)

> Not open source

Looks like the source code is available at https://github.com/BabylonJS/Babylon.js under the "Microsoft Public License" which has been certified by the Open Source Initiative as an open source license.

This is just another technology connected with Microsoft that we should lament - right along with C#, Mono, Knockout, and TypeScript. Microsoft earned the ire of geeks everywhere in the 90s and it's a grudge many can't let go. Meanwhile you let Apple and Google steamroll you all by showing you what a real closed ecosystem monopoly really looks like. And you swallow it down because they do it all under the banner of 'open source.'

This makes absolutely no sense. Apple (iOS, OS X as examples) generally is a very closed ecosystem, though not a monopoly, and certainly don't operate under the banner of 'open source'. Google (Android, Chrome as examples) is a pretty open ecosystem, also not a monopoly, and actually is open source, no idea what "banner of 'open source'" means but they just are open source.

On the flip side, there's no reason to hate everything Microsoft do, c# and Mono are great. Maybe people should get over dismissing anything open source that Microsoft do, but the rest of what you've said makes no sense.

> On the flip side, there's no reason to hate everything Microsoft do, c# and Mono are great.

Microsoft didn't do Mono, it did .NET which Mono cloned in a form supported on a wider variety of platforms.

Mono is pretty much ostracized from the open source community along with many open source C# projects. Remember the whole ordeal about including Mono in Ubuntu?

Fair enough, I've never looked into it and he gave it as an example of a Microsoft project.

I've invested in a number of MS technologies only to have them discontinued or changed in a way that broke my code. This has happened a number of times. On the other hand, my OpenGL, C and Java code still all works.

There's a lot of reason to not use MS technologies even if you do like MS.

Don't really have a problem with Microsoft releasing open source libraries showcasing their support for open source technology. Yes, it's late for MS to be coming to Jesus er Stallman, but that's what you do when you're playing catchup.

"real closed ecosystem monopoly" you mean closed like Android, Chrome, Go, etc. etc.?

And you swallow it down because they do it all under the banner of 'open source.'

It is not under the banner of 'open source'. It IS open source (just ask Amazon, for example).

Uhg, the point is these are all multi-billion dollar businesses that use open source in one way or another. The problem is the open source (hacker news) community pretty much auto-ignores/dislikes anything connected with Microsoft. It's juvenile.

It's not juvenile - as a matter of fact, I'm very wary of Microsoft's moves because I remember perfectly well just how greedy and shady Microsoft has been (especially during the nineties). In comparison, Google has been a much better citizen in the developers community. It too will succumb to the problems of gigantism and the pressure of "shareholder value" in the long run, but for now you really can't compare the credibility of Google's and Microsoft's open source programs.

It's getting better: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-and-xamarin-getting...

> especially during the nineties

That was 20 years ago!

That's exactly why I said it wasn't "juvenile" ;)

It is open sourced under Microsoft Public License: https://github.com/BabylonJS/Babylon.js

According to the Free Software Foundation, it is a free software license but not compatible with the GNU GPL.

> but not compatible with the GNU GPL.

That doesn't mean much, the GPL (v3) is incompatible with itself (v2). Not a GPL hater, just pointing out that it's not a big deal for licenses to be incompatible with the GPL.

Yes you're right about that, although this is only mentioned in the blog post, not the website. I'm also guessing this is open source the same way say Google open sources Android or Apple open sources Darwin.

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