Make (or use) .NET Framework ref assemblies as a nuget package

[natemcmaster]

Reduce the number of external things that have to be installed in order to compile.
Also, it will reduce the things that are downloaded on Linux builds where .NET Framework isn't actually used.

[davidfowl]

Is this something we'd really want to own? There's an issue for this on corefx.

[natemcmaster]

This would be just for us. We've asked netfx to make these a few times, but after a few years of waiting, I think it's safe to say it's not coming.

[natemcmaster]

We may be able to punt this: dotnet/sdk#335

[Eilon]

Previous related issue: aspnet/KoreBuild#211

[natemcmaster]

Note to a potential future implementer: in linux, we acquire netfx assemblies with the "get-netfx.sh" script. If we move to nuget, that piece of the bootstrapper can be deleted.

[dasMulli]

What about the ones at https://dotnet.myget.org/feed/dotnet-core/package/nuget/Microsoft.TargetingPack.NETFramework.v4.5.2 ?

[natemcmaster]

That is one possibility. We're looking into it.

[natemcmaster]

Roslyn has some packages too that may provide this. https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn/blob/9a71fb677a8fa4bdab82ef9a49ae0358e1c9f578/build/Targets/Settings.props#L68

[hubuk]

@dasMulli
Microsoft.TargetingPack.NETFramework.v* packages lack some important directories described in this issue: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/25012
With this change they could be a replacement for https://aspnetcore.blob.core.windows.net/buildtools/netfx/4.6.1/netfx.4.6.1.tar.gz used currently.

[natemcmaster]

Good to know. Thanks for the heads up @hubuk .

[natemcmaster]

@tmat do you happen to know if roslyn's reference assembly nuget packages are (1) open source and (2) reference-able as a PackageReference?

[tmat]

@natemcmaster @jaredpar Builds the package from here: https://github.com/jaredpar/xcopy-msbuild/blob/master/build-reference-assemblies.ps1. The package is available in roslyn-tools feed:
https://dotnet.myget.org/feed/roslyn-tools/package/nuget/RoslynTools.ReferenceAssemblies

[natemcmaster]

Thanks @tmat. That package looks almost identical to a package we made too: https://dotnet.myget.org/feed/aspnetcore-tools/package/nuget/NETFrameworkReferenceAssemblies. I don't have any plans to work on this at the moment, but ideally, we'd love to be able to do this.

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="NETFramework.TargetingPack" Version="4.6.1" />
  </ItemGroup>

[tmat]

I believe there are work items on the dotnet SDK team to make something like that happen. @nguerrera

[nguerrera]

@dsplaisted had a proposal, but I think this falls on corefx. cc @Petermarcu

[natemcmaster]

I've been watching dotnet/sdk#335. Is the best one to use to keep track of progress on this?

[nguerrera]

The corefx team has unofficial targeting pack nupkgs. I think they need to make them official and then we can build support for using them into the SDK. cc @weshaggard.

[weshaggard]

I believe @terrajobst owns writing up a design. However at this point there are no concrete plans around doing this work.

cc @richlander

[natemcmaster]

Closing in favor of dotnet/designs#33 and dotnet/sdk#335

[natemcmaster]

Changed our minds again. Let's use the ref packs the roslyn team made and put on https://dotnet.myget.org/F/roslyn-tools/api/v3/index.json. cref dotnet/roslyn-tools#190.

[natemcmaster]

This was completed in dotnet/aspnetcore#6995