Microsoft reverses controversial .NET change after open source community outcry

Microsoft reverses controversial .NET change after open source community outcry

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.

Itโ€™s 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 thatโ€™s 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 Microsoftโ€™s 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 Microsoftโ€™s own employees. โ€œWe 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 communityโ€™s 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 didnโ€™t want to discuss the controversial decision. โ€œWe 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. โ€œHot Reload capability will be in the general availability build of the .NET 6 SDK available on November 8th.โ€

Microsoftโ€™s blog post doesnโ€™t 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. โ€œIn our effort to scope, we inadvertently ended up deleting the source code instead of just not invoking that code path,โ€ says Hunter.

Hot Reload lets developers instantly see code changes while apps are running.

While the reversal will be a welcome one for the .NET community, the explanation and circumstances around this incident wonโ€™t sit easy with those who value transparency around such decisions.

โ€œAs 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. โ€œSometimes we donโ€™t get it right. When we donโ€™t, 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 Microsoftโ€™s involvement in the .NET Foundation. The foundation was created in 2014 when Microsoft made .NET open source, and itโ€™s 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 itโ€™s โ€œhere to enforce Microsoftโ€™s 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 Microsoftโ€™s 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.

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