Pretty cool! Considering the moves being made by Oracle, it would be awesome if we get a super high quality, high speed, true FOSS platform from Microsoft, originally, of all places :))
The problem with .NET Core compared to Java is that it's still less portable at the moment - it doesn't work on any of the BSDs, for example. Someone's working on it, though.
As recently as 10 years ago you could only run Java on BSDs through the Linux compatibility layer. And Java's been around as a cross platform project since 1996.
I love how the term FUD is used, purely ironically after the decade of shit MSFT gave everyone else. It's only fair to treat them with suspicion. The reason for this is even if the current MSFT objectives are good then what is to say that the next set of objectives are? People who don't treat them with suspicion have no expertise dealing with corporate whim over the years.
Well, they've just made the thing Open Source, made an independent foundation which they're opening up to other organizations (just like the FSF, the Python Foundation, etc.). The code is under the MIT license. I think they've also made a patent pledge.
If they change their minds now, future .NET versions can be made proprietary again. But what's out is out. Can't be put back into the box.
And you also called "Java" an "alligator", which I don't think was a compliment. Java has been a very solid platform for about 22 years. If it would have been a kid, now it would be in college. On top of that it's been Open Source for more than a few years. I don't like/trust Oracle, but just like for .NET, if you don't like them, you can fork.
I was calling oracle and microsoft the alligator and crocodile for reference. The technology is good on both sides.
The steer and the intention is dubious however. I have also used Java extensively, back when it popped up on Solaris for ref. The difficulty is that the platform will always have priority development on the business interests of the hour and that overlaps with saleable things. Microsoft are only doing this "for free" because they are still objectively making a shit ton of money out of subscription services (Azure / O365) and they know the rest of the market is dead. So this is now a gateway to using those services effectively. It's a clever bit of planning and I respect them for that. But at the same time I've been burned so many times now with random direction changes and deprecations that I can't put my trust in it or logically risk building a new product on their platform.
You can't fork them realistically. That's not possible. Well you can but there will be no traction unless you take the entire community with you.
If they get too shady, especially Oracle, the Java community is way bigger than Oracle itself. I'm pretty sure that a Java fork would be successful, if push comes to shove.
The .NET community is much smaller so at this point it wouldn't work. But the way they are going, in a few years it should be doable.
You obviously won't be able to fork as a solo contributor, but if it's that bad, you won't go at it alone.
I thought it was because Microsoft is licensing[0] most of .Net under MIT and Apache License 2.0 with a broad patent grant that would make what Oracle did to Google (vis-à-vis Java in Android[1]) impossible.
