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: dotnet/vscode-csharp#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 dotnet/vscode-csharp#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!

(dotnet/vscode-csharp#1431 (comment))

[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 ***@***.***> 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. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#505 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA96nVNa4ud3Uj8OYI9KRYR_B_ETjcRgks5umBDTgaJpZM4MDYAf> .

-- Carlo Reggiani about.me/reggianicarlo [image: Carlo Reggiani on about.me] <http://about.me/reggianicarlo>

[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).

[Rom1deTroyes]

You can use netcoredbg in the meantime.

As it seems to be the only (legal) usable option for now, I use it for now (with no issues 👍), but the main problem is not having a common debugger : could you imagine using different linters or test frameworks in a same team ?

[ShalokShalom]

Let's switch to netcoredbg. The problem is, that people still use Omnisharp.

[superkeka]

Typical microsoft.
vcode OSS C# extension

[nlhnt]

@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).

Hehehe this didn't age too well (if anyone doesn't know then VS for Mac doesn't exist anymore, mac users are left with VSCode only).

[scherenhaenden]

I'm now working with Jetbrain products.... they are by far better, and I know I paid my stuff and get my stuff, working on Linux and Mac...

So guys... change to something that actually works... MS may even try to buy jetbrains to tell that would be part of their strategy and 2 years later would kill all those produces and try to make us use their VS...

[KhorAMus]

I would like to change VS code a little bit for my preferences but in that case I can't use it as a debugger for .NET. Microsoft, please make vsdbg free to use.

[MishaProductions]

Is there any update on this? Why does Microsoft claim that .NET is open source when something as important as the debugger is closed source? I understand that Microsoft needs to make money from .NET somehow, such as selling visual studio licenses, but Visual Studio does not support Linux. Really hope that Microsoft open sources vsdbg.
Got debugger working thanks to this extension: https://open-vsx.org/extension/muhammad-sammy/csharp
Update: deleted my Windows 10 VM, also found another helpful vscode extension to get solution explorer to work: https://open-vsx.org/extension/fernandoescolar/vscode-solution-explorer

[Simplereally]

2024 and still we still don't have this! Time to bring .NET up to the modern coding age. Less friction for devs in this way will always be a win for onboarding and existing users.

[ultimaweapon]

I really like C# and .NET Core and I'm a Linux user. This kind of issues made me heartbroken. I decided to slowly migrate my works into another stack. No more heartbroken with C# and .NET.

2 years later and nothing has changed. I'm glad that I was decided to move away from C# and .NET Core. Now I'm really happy with Rust even though the beginning of the journey is hard.

[jrt324]

Isn't dotnet already open-source? What is the purpose of this restriction? Is this restriction healthy for the community?

[mohamedadnane8]

Totally Agree. I am considering leaving C# because of this issue

[Kreijstal]

@mohamedadnane8
just go back to mono

[scherenhaenden]

To those saying that we were left alone with VSC only. Noup. We have rider.

Mono is NOT an option as per se. @Kreijstal. Mono is a Copy (not really) of .NetFramework. I used to use it in Linux and then .NetFramework for my website. Yes my website used to run on that via Ubuntu and even Docker. Right now it runs using dotnet.

Rider is now Free available.

[scherenhaenden]

@mohamedadnane8

I thinking myself of changing back to Java, because it is paying a lot more... Germany is full of companies that ditch Cobol and reimplemented everything in Java... so, right now we are navigating a recession and almost everything that ppl is looking now is for java developers...

[Kreijstal]

To those saying that we were left alone with VSC only. Noup. We have rider.

Mono is NOT an option as per se. @Kreijstal. Mono is a Copy (not really) of .NetFramework. I used to use it in Linux and then .NetFramework for my website. Yes my website used to run on that via Ubuntu and even Docker. Right now it runs using dotnet.

Rider is now Free available.

I mean but you'd have to use propietary sources to get dotnet, mono is still open source

[scherenhaenden]

@Kreijstal then use it... I won't go back to mono. :) have fun...

[pautx24]

Completly unacceptable. What an incoherence to say that .NET is open-source when debugging is a MUST for a developer nowadays

[tonyqus]

This license change may be out of permission of any guys in the Visual Studio team.

According to the latest MSFT reorg, Jay Parikh is now the VP of MSFT. Furthermore, the Visual Studio team including Julia Liuson reports to him. If someone can persuade Jay to open source .NET Debugging library, it can be the right way. He is the real decision-maker.

[Kreijstal]

Or use open source mono like a boss

[L96Github]

Cant believe we still don't have an update on this

[lukaspoloki]

Still waiting

[TharinduBalasooriya]

Disappointed 🥴

[hadideveloper]

This issue opened in Feb 2017, already 8 years!!!, Disappointing :(

[tonyqus]

Unless there is a big revolution happening in the Visual Studio team, I don't think this would happen.

Btw, does anybody here know how to write a debugger from scratch? I'm planning to learn and write an open-source .NET debugger by myself. Or I learn from the open-source Samsung debugger? Does anyone know what's the gap here?

[Kreijstal]

Unless there is a big revolution happening in the Visual Studio team, I don't think this would happen.

Btw, does anybody here know how to write a debugger from scratch? I'm planning to learn and write an open-source .NET debugger by myself. Or I learn from the open-source Samsung debugger? Does anyone know what's the gap here?

I would start from mono, check how gdbserver works. then see what functions the .NET runtime allow you.

[kekekeks]

@tonyqus

Btw, does anybody here know how to write a debugger from scratch?

See
https://github.com/lordmilko/ClrDebug/

[garrettlondon1]

+1

[Mac2m]

+1