Microsoft is reversing a decision to remove a key feature from its upcoming .NET 6 release, after a public outcry from the open source community. Microsoft angered the .NET open source community earlier this week by removing a key part of Hot Reload in the upcoming release of .NET 6, a feature that allows developers to modify source code while an app is running and immediately see the results.
Itโs a feature many had been looking forward to using in Visual Studio Code and across multiple platforms, until Microsoft made a controversial last-minute decision to lock it to Visual Studio 2022 which is a paid product thatโs limited to Windows. Sources at Microsoft, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Verge that the last-minute change was made by Julia Liuson, the head of Microsoftโs developer division, and was a business-focused move.
Microsoft has now reversed the change following a backlash, and anger inside the company from many of Microsoftโs own employees. โWe made a mistake in executing on our decision and took longer than expected to respond back to the community,โ explains Scott Hunter, director of program management for .NET. Microsoft has now approved the communityโs pull request to re-enable this feature and it will be available in the final version of the .NET 6 SDK.
We asked Microsoft to comment on the fact an executive ordered the change, but the company didnโt want to discuss the controversial decision. โWe have taken steps to address the issue that some of our OSS community members have experienced,โ says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. โHot Reload capability will be in the general availability build of the .NET 6 SDK available on November 8th.โ
Microsoftโs blog post doesnโt address this controversial decision, though. Instead, it suggests it was simply a mistake to remove the code instead of simply disabling it, and not a business decision. โIn our effort to scope, we inadvertently ended up deleting the source code instead of just not invoking that code path,โ says Hunter.
While the reversal will be a welcome one for the .NET community, the explanation and circumstances around this incident wonโt sit easy with those who value transparency around such decisions.
โAs is true with many companies, we are learning to balance the needs of OSS community and being a corporate sponsor for .NET,โ says Hunter. โSometimes we donโt get it right. When we donโt, the best we can do is learn from our mistakes and be better moving forward.โ
This eventful episode came after weeks of unrest in the .NET community over Microsoftโs involvement in the .NET Foundation. The foundation was created in 2014 when Microsoft made .NET open source, and itโs supposed to be an independent organization that exists to improve open source software development and collaboration for .NET. A resigning board member questioned the role of the .NET Foundation recently, asking whether itโs โhere to enforce Microsoftโs will on .NET open source, or are you here to help foster and promote a healthy community?โ
A recent controversy also led to .NET Foundation executive director Claire Novotny resigning recently and others questioning the independence of the .NET Foundation given Microsoftโs special privileges. Microsoft has certainly damaged some of the open source work it has been building on for 10 years with this u-turn, and the company still has plenty of work ahead to improve relations with the .NET community and the issues around its influence on the .NET Foundation.