Microsoft Makes Their C++ Standard Library Open-Source (STL)

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Microsoft Makes Their C++ Standard Library Open-Source (STL)

Microsoft has begun their next open-source expedition by open-sourcing an important piece of MSVC / Visual Studio... STL, their C++ standard library...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...TL-Open-Source

[Guest]

Great, that it's released under Apache 2.0 license, as it contains patent grant:

3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of
this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual,
worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
(except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made,
use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work,
where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable
by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their
Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s)
with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You
institute patent litigation against any entity (including a
cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work
or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct
or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses
granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate
as of the date such litigation is filed.

I wonder, what happened to M$, that they are open-sourcing their solutions?

[reavertm]

Their solution to problem that everyone has - to have standard C++ library.
I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft followed with opensourcing their compiler soon.
Free bugfixing while not making anyone else more competitive (what could happen if they opensourced let's say Office suite).

[skeevy420]

Great, that it's released under Apache 2.0 license, as it contains patent grant:



I wonder, what happened to M$, that they are open-sourcing their solutions?

Actual competition.

Casuals don't need Windows and can get away with using Android/Apple tablets & Chromebooks.

Gamers don't need Windows and can get away with using Linux, Wine, & Proton for a lot of our stuff that isn't mass multiplayer.

Professionals don't need Windows and can get away with using Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc while tossing Windows in a VM for the 2 legacy things they need Windows for.

Office workers don't need Windows and can get away with any OS that has a functional desktop and web browser thanks to all the online office suites and web programs.

Graphics designers/video editors don't need Windows and can get away with Linux or OSX.

Simply put: legacy software, office suites, games, and Photoshop don't retain the number of users like they did in the 00's and 90's since Open Source has evolved to the point to where it can actually compete and retain users that switch.

[EarthMind]

Actual competition.

Casuals don't need Windows and can get away with using Android/Apple tablets & Chromebooks.

Gamers don't need Windows and can get away with using Linux, Wine, & Proton for a lot of our stuff that isn't mass multiplayer.

Professionals don't need Windows and can get away with using Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc while tossing Windows in a VM for the 2 legacy things they need Windows for.

Office workers don't need Windows and can get away with any OS that has a functional desktop and web browser thanks to all the online office suites and web programs.

Graphics designers/video editors don't need Windows and can get away with Linux or OSX.

Simply put: legacy software, office suites, games, and Photoshop don't retain the number of users like they did in the 00's and 90's since Open Source has evolved to the point to where it can actually compete and retain users that switch.

I don't think your points are valid though. Except for the casuals and designers/editors arguments, you're saying the opposite of what's true.

MS just has learned how much more successful their libraries, languages and tools can be if they open source it. Development and quality of code can dramatically improve by letting the community involve in the development phase, without any extra cost for them.

From the financial aspect, it's all about cost reduction. That's also why you don't see them open sourcing their moneymaking products like Office, Windows, SQL server etc.

[oiaohm]

Great, that it's released under Apache 2.0 license, as it contains patent grant:

I wonder, what happened to M$, that they are open-sourcing their solutions?

You need to read more https://github.com/microsoft/STL

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com.

Then you got to that cla site and find the following
https://opensource.microsoft.com/pdf...-agreement.pdf

5. Licenses.

a. Copyright License.

You grant Microsoft, and those who receive the Submission directly or indirectly from Microsoft, a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable license in the Submission to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, and distribute the Submission and such derivative works, and to sublicense any or all of the foregoing rights to third parties.

b. Patent License.

You grant Microsoft, and those who receive the Submission directly or indirectly from Microsoft, a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable license under Your patent claims that are necessarily infringed by the Submission or the combination of the Submission with the Project to which it was Submitted to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell and import or otherwise dispose of the Submission alone or with the Project.

Yes they have open source it to a point. But you want to contribute something you have to give Microsoft a license to license the code how ever they want. This is a Indian giver setup so they can release it open source for now get fixes then closed source it again and there is nothing legally wrong with it.

Non-goal: Porting to other platforms.
That another given.

So they have no plans on allowing other compilers to build this library.

[skeevy420]

I don't think your points are valid though. Except for the casuals and designers/editors arguments, you're saying the opposite of what's true.

MS just has learned how much more successful their libraries, languages and tools can be if they open source it. Development and quality of code can dramatically improve by letting the community involve in the development phase, without any extra cost for them.

From the financial aspect, it's all about cost reduction. That's also why you don't see them open sourcing their moneymaking products like Office, Windows, SQL server etc.

Well, yeah, but only because more and more companies were picking Linux from the late 2000s+. Before the point of no return, Microsoft has started open sourcing enough stuff to keep enough geeks happy, to keep OEMs happy, and gave us a freakin Linux environment so we could use our preferred tools on our not preferred OS.

Look at it from their perspective: We've released our newest OS for free and yet Forbes has done 20 articles on Manjaro and Ubuntu describing how well they work and how the free OS from Microsoft has some catastrophic bug or regression once or twice a year that can F one in the A. Random non-geek news sources having articles that say these work and those kill your data matter to casuals and professionals alike and do have an effect else there wouldn't be so many damn TV commercials.

The Linux Desktop is at war with Windows 10 and Microsoft. Microsoft being forced into pulling out all their guns means we're going from a Cold War to a Hot War and shows that Microsoft really does consider the Linux desktop to be a real threat to their dominance.

[blacknova]

One have to wonder if this is good, bad or just irrelevant.

[oiaohm]

One have to wonder if this is good, bad or just irrelevant.

I would say irrelevant when you remember most companies will not allow their staff to agree to a CLA or work on any project that requires a CLA to submit code. So its open source where 90%+ of the open source coding world will not be allowed to work on it.

[blacknova]

The Linux Desktop is at war with Windows 10 and Microsoft. Microsoft being forced into pulling out all their guns means we're going from a Cold War to a Hot War and shows that Microsoft really does consider the Linux desktop to be a real threat to their dominance.

Do not delude yourself, this the one war that Windows 10 and MS forgot to attend. Desktop market share disproportion is to large to call current state war. And as much as I like using Linux on my workstation, I would not put it on non-developers workstations yet.