Microsoft standardises .NET

 

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Posted on 14 Dec 2001 at 12:43

Microsoft's .Net framework and C# have been ratified by an official standards body.

To be precise, the standards body ECMA has ratified specifications for the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), which are the bones of the .Net framework, and the C# programming language.

The significance of this is that Microsoft has, to a degree, ceded control of its .Net vision. The move is intended to disarm critics that Microsoft would have a critically dominant control over the framework, ie that it could move the goalposts at will, as new features were incorporated. Possible collaborators - and Microsoft needs many to achieve the widespread delivery of .Net Web services - may be reassured that the 'vision' is being officially formalised.

Sun has previously accused Microsoft of 'spinning [.Net] as an innovative new platform but what they're really doing is giving developers an updated set of handcuffs.' In principle, the 'keys' to the handcuffs are in the public control of ECMA.

The Open Source movement has already declared an interest in shadowing the .Net framework. Projects such as Mono, from Ximian, and dotGNU, from GNU, will presumably welcome this latest development.

You can read the official specifications on ECMA's Web site and MSDN.

The specifications were originally submitted - in collaboration with the likes of HP, IBM, Intel and Netscape, incidentally - back in October 2000.

The move throws into relief the decision not to standardise Java back in the late nineties. Sun Microsystems put its language forward for independent standardisation with ECMA - but after more than a year of work, and to the frustration of the language experts involved, Sun changed its mind and pulled out of the process, not wishing to relinquish full control. With time, and the possible successful implementation of .Net, this may come to be viewed as an historic flawed decision.

In January 2001, Microsoft had to settle a lawsuit with Sun over a violation of its licensing of Java. The accusation was that Microsoft had not-so-subtly modified its version of Java (Visual J++) such that it became dependent on the Windows computer operating system.

The low-down on .NET

The low-down on Java

Author: Alun Williams