Kindly reconsider the licensing for .NET Core debugging libraries

[TAGC]

I was under the impression that being as open-source as possible was one of Microsoft's chief goals with .NET Core. It's very surprising then to find that the licensing for Microsoft.VisualStudio.clrdbg - the only publicly available package that exposes the .NET Core debugging API - is so restrictive:

You may only use the .NET Core Debugger Components with Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio or Xamarin Studio software to help you develop and test your applications.

Because of this restriction, JetBrains have been forced to drop debugging support for .NET Core-based projects in the latest version of Rider EAP (EAP 17) which they released today. As a company that undertakes a great deal of innovation, I am sure that there are many people at Microsoft who are saddened by the idea of a very promising application being driven backwards due to legal/licensing reasons rather than technical issues.

The lack of debugging support for .NET Core projects in the latest version of Rider is a deal-breaker for me and I'm sure many others. I would like to know:

• Why is such a restrictive license necessary in the first place when the rest of .NET Core is open-source?
• Would it be possible to lift this restriction or at least consider making exceptions for certain products like Rider?

[McNerdius]

Pure speculation on my part, but i wonder if the answer to this is in the name of the license itself - "MICROSOFT PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE LICENSE" Not wanting to fuss about with (potential) third-party compatibility issues in pre-release seems reasonable. ¢¢

[miyu]

Relevant blog post from jetbrains: Rider EAP 17: NuGet, unit testing, good and bad news on debugging

[lundcm]

I suppose this would explain why there aren't decent plugins with other editors like Atom, Sublime, etc.

[pedershk]

Come on, Microsoft. This is no good. You need an open community around .Net Core. Try not to become the next Java.

[Rutix]

This issue has also been raised here: https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/1059 in the past. To be honest it's quite understandable that Microsoft wants to protect the value of Visual Studio and their other tools. As far as I can see the package is an implementation of the ICorDebug interface. Microsoft invested a lot of money and energy in building advanced debugging features around this so it's kinda understandable if they don't want to open source that. There is nothing stopping other developers to implement their own implementation of the interface.

What many people seem to forget is that Microsoft is a big organization. The implementation was not made by the team which does all the open source work. It's totally fair if other teams use the open source stuff to make products which they can sell.

[tetious]

I'm dissapointed but not surprised that Microsoft has completely ignored this issue. Every time I think maybe they've changed and actually intend to be open and collaborative with the community, even around touchy subjects like licensing, they do something like this which leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I wish someone would just assign the parties fighting against those who want change to a special project and be done with it. Why do they continue to have so much power to frustrate?

Sorry for the tone, but I've just spent the last 15 minutes trying to work around not having a debugger in Rider. I love Rider and it was the deciding factor for my using .net core for a fairly large project. Now my development is crippled unless I want to switch back to Windows. This is completely opposed to the supposed "we want you to be happy using .net on any platform" marketing.

It shouldn't be this way. This should have been resolved in a day via a quick email from the Rider team to MS.

TLDR: making .net core annoying to work for outdated reasons that make no sense is not going to win hearts and minds. Please stop being frustrating!

[stefan-schweiger]

@tetious actually the current Rider version for Windows should already have debugging enabled again, and the Mac and Linux version are soon to follow (in the comments they mentioned that they wrote their own implementation - for what I assume is a wrapper - of the debugger):

https://blog.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2017/02/23/rider-eap-18-coreclr-debugging-back-windows/

[Rutix]

@tetious TBH the demands you are making are kind of not making sense. The key thing in this incident is that Microsoft made it's own debugger implementation based on a public interface. That debugger is part of their commercial products like Visual Studio. Nothing stops another person/team/company to make their own debugger implementation. This is also what Rider started doing: (https://blog.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2017/02/23/rider-eap-18-coreclr-debugging-back-windows/) . You can't just give everything away for free and legally wise it's a whole process when it comes to licensing ect. If you suspect Microsoft to give the debugger away for free do you also expect Jetbrains to give all their stuff away for free? It's a flawed demand you are making.

[tetious]

@stefan-schweiger Yep, that was where my "switch back to Windows" comment in my wall of text came from. :)

There are a number of (imperfect) workarounds and this will likely be a non-issue Soon(TM). My point is that this is another of the dozen papercuts that I've experienced trying to use .net core on a non-Windows platform. The next biggest was expecting RC1 to resemble the final version and not drop dnx and mono-wrapping. A tangent for sure.

@Rutix I'd argue that the debugger is part of the platform. If the platform is to be free/open, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a command-line debugger should be included. It seems arbitrary to me to put it behind licensing restrictions that prevent other projects like Atom, Sublime, etc using it.

[Rutix]

@tetious except the debugger that they used wasn't made by the team which develops the OpenSource platform. So you can totally see the people who made the debugger implementation as a "third-party". You can argue that a command-line debugger not offered by the platform is a lack of feature but that can be contributed to the fact that the platform is pretty new. A lot of features are still missing.

[tetious]

@Rutix Microsoft was also touting their "One Microsoft" initiative not too long ago. Wouldn't your third-party argument go against that? :)

But seriously, I do understand that .net core is new, and some features are missing. I made the decision to use it based on the features that existed at the time. I didn't expect things to go backward post rc1. (Losing dnx was even more frustrating.)

I also realize that Jetbrains is partially to blame here as they violated the license and should not have included the debugger at all. Also, I am partly to blame for relying on pre-release software. :)

I just don't like silence. Why hasn't Microsoft commented on this? Instead of frustrating the folks who use Rider, why couldn't they have made even a temporary concession so as not to be frustrating? That's my real point. I shouldn't have to follow the politics and care about this stuff. I just wanna write code.

[Rutix]

@tetious They have commented on this issue in https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/1059 . But as you can see the people commenting on that thread say that it is above their pay grade and there have been conversations. Even though Microsoft says "One Microsoft", Microsoft is so big that there are many stakeholders wanting different things.

I understand your feelings though, but to be frankly emotions almost never have an influence on the level these decisions are made. They are business decisions and people need to convince people to change their views.

[lol768]

I agree with @tetious on this. If MS want the platform and ecosystem to be taken seriously and adopted it needs to appear homogeneous externally - regardless of any internal politics that may be in play.

If the platform is open, it's entiirely reasonable to expect that the debugger (as such a crucial development tool) comes under the platform umbrella. The lack of acknowledgement of the problem here/discussion of plans moving forward and the bureaucracy seemingly prevented this getting sorted is incredibly disappointing to see but perhaps not surprisiing from such a large company. It's especially discouraging to see JetBrains, who are putting in the effort to make an IDE comparable to -- better than -- Visual Studio which works on Linux (something Microsoft never bothered doing) and isn't a web browser in disguiise, being hurt by this.

[MrSapps]

Then why can't the MS open source team write yet another debugger that is open? Not having an open debugger with an open platform is rather strange.

[0xd4d]

MS released MDbg a long time ago, it's open source, should be trivial to support .NET Core (on Windows). Could take a little bit more work to make it work on Linux/macOS.

[giggio]

We haven't had any answer from Microsoft ever. It is time to at least address the problem, even if the answer is to say that it is what it is.

[brockallen]

That license link on NuGet goes to a 404 page.

[hartmannr76]

Is this still being talked about? Like @giggio said, I'm really just looking for an "ok" or "not happening" answer from Microsoft. It's unfortunate other IDE's will have to build their own custom debuggers to work with this instead of just building the interface from the IDE to the debugger. I understand why Microsoft wouldn't want to share that but as others have mentioned, it would be nice for a common debugger to be a part of the "open platform".

[Daniel-V1]

Found this today after reading through this issue and searching for a debugger. Haven't used it yet, but it is open source and MIT licensed, and implements GDB/MI spec and Debug Adapter Protocol.

https://github.com/Samsung/netcoredbg

[omajid]

@Daniel-V1 It's being used by at least one IDE already: https://github.com/eclipse/aCute#concept

[carloreggiani]

Dear Microsoft... or better to call you again M$???

"Error processing 'configurationDone' request. Unknown Error: 0x89720010" using vscode-oss with omnisharp-vscode extension (both rebuilded, MIT license) trying to build a dotNet core application in environment completly opensource.

Sure, dotNet Core and VS Code are Open Source project, great M$:

It seems crazy not only to me, fortunally!

(https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/1431#issuecomment-297578930)

[giggio]

@carloreggiani This is not a good way to discuss the issue. If you have criticism to bring to the table, than do it, but do it respectfully. Nobody owes you anything, not Microsoft, nor the thousands of people who contributed to the several projects. They can open source, or not, whatever they choose to. Their business model is their problem, and you don't get a say in it (or me). If you don't like it, you can go ahead and build your own open source .NET Core debugging library, or ask them about a position, respectfully, as others here have done. Yes, they should answer if they are going to open it or not (and this answer is overdue), but no, they don't have to do it. It is not crazy, it is a common business decision, and it is not up to us.

[salaros]

Visual Studio for Mac owes a lot to MonoDevelop project. Making such decisions (as they did with vsdbg) is ethically incorrect, especially if lately you build your success on the shoulders of open-source community. Basically they want to benefit from what the community offers and then add proprietary licenses on projects based on / derived from open-source solutions.

[Rutix]

@salaros That's a little bit shortsighted tbh. It's an undeniable fact that Microsoft gives a lot back to the community and actively participate in the community. It's ethically incorrect to expect them to share everything for free.

[ceremony]

Plain and simple, I would have to agree with MSFT on this. There has to be -some- aspect of development that has to be justifiable on a cost/benefit business level. I'm getting a little bit tired of open-source/free everything.

When was the last time your lawyer open-sourced the case and did it for free?
Or your doctor open-sourced your checkup and did it for free?

For one thing, Visual Studio Community Edition, VS Code, SQL Server Dev. Edition, Typescript, .NET Core, Teams, etc. and a host of associated technologies are absolutely free - MSFT doesn't see a single penny up front (of course, for non-enterprise versions).

So if as developers, we expect to earn a good living based on our work and experience, then we in return have to establish value for all development work - and giving it away for free diminishes/commoditizes the role of good engineering.

[carloreggiani]

OpenSource is not free.

On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 7:25 AM Srikant Krishna notifications@github.com wrote:

Plain and simple, I would have to agree with MSFT on this. There has to be -some- aspect of development that has to be justifiable on a cost/benefit business level. I'm getting a little bit tired of open-source/free everything.

When was the last time your lawyer open-sourced the case and did it for free? Or your doctor open-sourced your checkup and did it for free?

For one thing, Visual Studio Community Edition, VS Code, SQL Server Dev. Edition, Typescript, .NET Core, Teams, etc. and a host of associated technologies are absolutely free - MSFT doesn't see a single penny up front (of course, for non-enterprise versions).

So if as developers, we expect to earn a good living based on our work and experience, then we in return have to establish value for all development work - and giving it away for free diminishes/commoditizes the role of good engineering.

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[scherenhaenden]

I would like to put my 2 Cents.

Indeed MS is not obligated to do so. BUT! they use this new Strategy of "We love Open Source" and at the very same time they do this..

They just try to make ppl see a cherry of the whole tree, to try to get em back to Windows and Visual Studio. This is not love for Open source, this is pure strategy.

[Rutix]

@scherenhaenden "We love Open Source" doesn't mean they have to open source everything. And I think https://opensource.microsoft.com/ is indication enough of the "We love Open Source" statement.

It works on Mac so how is this a strategy to get them back to Windows? There also also opensource implementations now (and it isn't stopping anyone of making their own implementation).

[scherenhaenden]

I did NOT say that....

1.- That was always their strategy. 2.- They do NOT love Open Source... and that is the point... their are selling that, indeed they are just trying to get the users into their rails... as they always did... there is a reason why C# exits in first place....

that "We love Open Source"... is bullshit... if they wouldnt feel risk on losing the market, or money... they would be still on the well known line...

[giggio]

So what @scherenhaenden is saying is that because of one closed source project among hundreds of open sourced ones (with very permissive licenses) Microsoft doesn't love open source. So I guess this means that also Google, Amazon, Red Had, and pretty much every single company on the planet also don't, as I don't seem to remember a for profit company open sourcing every single project it works on.

And this is besides the point, and this discussion is fruitless. Your opinion on whether Microsoft loves OS or not makes no difference in the problem being discussed here. So, can we please stop this discussion and go back and focus on the real problem here?

Microsoft, please tell us what is the decision on the .NET Core debugging libraries. It is a simple yes or no answer, are you open sourcing it or not?

[stefan-schweiger]

Can we please lock the conversation on this issue? The discussion is mostly off-topic and I think probably all valid points for or against it were already made.

As much as I would like a clear decision from Microsoft, I don't think arguing about if Microsoft loves open source or not will get us there any sooner.

@karelz @Eilon you two seem like the most active "offical" members in this repo, so please consider this suggestion.

[scherenhaenden]

"How would you recommend they monetize Visual Studio" I never recommended to do that or not to do that... Apple asks for money for everything... and I pay the things I have to pay... without a word... this is not about "paying"... this is about the huge manipulation. you see, Apple never said "We love Open Source"...

[Rutix]

And again. Saying you love open-source doesn't mean you have to open source everything. But like others said in this thread, it's kind of irrelevant. We would just like a yes or no answer.

On Fri, Oct 26, 2018, 17:43 scherenhaenden notifications@github.com wrote:

"How would you recommend they monetize Visual Studio" I never recommended to do that or not to do that... Apple asks for money for everything... and I pay the things I have to pay... without a word... this is not about "paying"... this is about the huge manipulation. you see, Apple never said "We love Open Source"...

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/dotnet/core/issues/505#issuecomment-433451943, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAOvLCdiwUaJ6K-FNhZmp1LJBK4lB02kks5uoy2YgaJpZM4MDYAf .

[JacobHenner]

This would be helpful. At least add a provision allowing users of the unbranded vscode to use the debugger...

[bdonnahue]

Open source it already!! WTF. I am going to switch languages!

[voronoipotato]

As a Visual Studio pro license payer I'm not more happy about being able to use your tools in less environments with fewer editors. How does this translate into more money for Microsoft in any way? Open it up and sell support for Visual Studio and VS Code if you want to bias towards your products. When wondering who this is going to impact negatively, the answer is overwhelmingly paying customers. I highly doubt that a nonpaying customer is so excited about the visual studio debugger that they want to run it on Emacs. I don't pay to be locked in to a hermetically sealed corporate box, if I wanted that I would have gone to Apple years ago. Code is culture, if I can't share my .NET code with an Emacs dev then I'll have to pick a different language when working with others. It's not fair to demand that a contributor must use my text editor. To me that sucks, because I love F# and I love .NET, and I want to build things with other people, not alone.

[bdonnahue]

Update: I have started moving back to Mono project and Java.

[voronoipotato]

@bdonnahue jokes like that can genuinely get you into trouble, even with the :p . In some countries that can be highly illegal so you might want to edit it to be more explicitly clear that it was a joke. While I know many of us are fired up, I would hate for you to have to deal with an expensive legal process over a goof.

[bdonnahue]

@voronoipotato sad but true. op updated :)

[alexrp]

I'm the person who wrote Mono's command line debugger client. To me, it is very important for a language ecosystem to have a command line debugger, especially on non-Windows platforms where having a GUI is not a given.

I was a bit disappointed to learn recently that there's no command line debugger for .NET Core (other than LLDB with a plugin, but that's a pretty bad user experience). Still, having implemented Mono's command line debugger, I wouldn't mind doing the same for .NET Core. So I searched around for the debugger API for .NET Core and stumbled upon this issue... which is even more disappointing.

The thing is, while an open source license would be ideal, it's not even required. The library could remain closed source but at least have a license that would permit third-party use of it.

So that's the situation. There's no command line debugger, and the license of the API prevents me from implementing one, despite being willing to invest the time. That's not a good look for an 'open source' ecosystem.

[omajid]

@alexrp Have you seen https://github.com/Samsung/netcoredbg? It sounds like non-open source debugging library can be re-implemented itself.

(But yeah, I personaly agree that it would be much better if everything was open source.)

[FengTianShi]

a

[vintzl]

Why Microsoft stay silent?

[Rutix]

@vintzl Microsoft gave a reaction in https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/1431#issuecomment-297578930 . This item is kinda old and no one of Microsoft was tagged in this issue so I don't think any will receive notifications. Maybe @gregg-miskelly knows who can react on this issue once and for all :).

[robust]

Hmm I must admit that I'm a bit confused so I might be wrong here. But to me it feels wrong that microsoft can impose restrictions on us with one license and give us the permissions from the MIT license at the same time. "to deal in the Software without restriction" doesn't go hand in hand with "you can only use this with our software".

Or does it mean that if we build from the source we can use it as we want?

[vintzl]

I hate Windows 10 (a big buggy and greedy monster), but I am not a Microsoft hater… I just found Linux far from being perfect, but better than any Windows.

What really sucks is this license. If only the debugger was closed source but usable outside MS products…

Indeed, there is a gap between Vs Code and Visual Studio. And I found myself in trouble because Vs Code is not suitable for big Projects, and Monodevelop lack of the debugger…

I would even be willing to pay a Visual Studio license under Linux, but there is no such a thing… Why providing not something like SQL Server on Linux?

Sadly, .NET Core is cross platform but there is no such cross platform IDE…

[Socolin]

I would even be willing to pay a Visual Studio license under Linux, but there is no such a thing… Why providing not something like SQL Server on Linux?

Sadly, .NET Core is cross platform but there is no such cross platform IDE…

Rider has a debugger that works on Linux too for .NET Core : https://www.jetbrains.com/rider/

[knocte]

Rider is not opensource

[Rutix]

@knocte Nobody said it was. And closed source also works on Linux so what's your point?

[Rutix]

There is a debugger in Rider nowadays. They made their own AFAIK. So it is a valid alternative for Linux.