Ask HN: Which changes to expect after “.net” goes open source?
What market change will it bring to open source ".net"?
There may be a few people who pull bits of it in but I suspect that bad memories and some of the real nasty portability problems (perf counters, COM, services, registry, config, iis tie in etc) will be a lot of friction and a barrier to entry.
(I say this as someone who writes c# for a living)
I guess Microsoft thinks the lure will not be large enough for many of their customers. Alternatively, they feel they have to do this because governments and large customers ask for solutions where a realistic tender is possible.
Someone could change that by providing a de facto standard compatibility environment or automated porting system, though. Microsoft could do that, too, but I do not think they have changed that much (yet?)