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A comment on Checked C. Parent comment

Re:Checked C by johncolanduoni on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @07:42AM (#11901307)
I don't think this project is an instance where this is an important aspect, but in general I do agree that some caution is warranted when using an open source project backed by a corporation (Microsoft or anyone else) in your code. As someone who was recently burned by what happened to RoboVM[1], I am now always careful to check for any CLAs that are required to contribute to open source projects before I decide to use them in anything important.

The fact than you can fork is nice, but if the project is too reliant on the paid staff and doesn't have enough community surrounding it to survive getting dropped by its benefactor, you better hope you have the resources to maintain it yourself. This can happen even with no ill-intention involved, but the whole RoboVM debacle has convinced me that Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is not quite dead at Microsoft.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11503808

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Re:Checked C by pjmlp on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @09:44AM (#11901962)
How many startups have been killed by other corporations, including Google, FB and friends?

The RoboVM situation, while unfortunate is a lesson for people not to rely on proprietary tooling for portable projects.

While I mostly code on JVM and .NET languages during the day, I use C++ for my hobby projects on mobile OSes.

The reason being that C++ is an open standard and officially supported in all SDKs, no need for third party layers like RoboVM.

A few similar lessons with my time spent on programming languages that weren't first party on platform SDKs, made me always choose first party languages, if I have decision power in the selection process.

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Re:Checked C by johncolanduoni on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @07:23PM (#11906162)
> How many startups have been killed by other corporations, including Google, FB and friends?

Yeah, that's why I said "Microsoft or anyone else". The only other time I mentioned Microsoft was in reference to RoboVM, which doesn't have much to do with Google or Facebook.

> The RoboVM situation, while unfortunate is a lesson for people not to rely on proprietary tooling for portable projects.

I agree, but the fact that RoboVM started off open source with a GPL licensed compiler was one of the main reasons I chose it. It's my own fault I didn't look to see how contributions were structured, or notice that very little code came from outside RoboVM, sure. That's why I'm advising caution in similar situations.

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Re:Checked C by cwyers on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @10:27AM (#11902193)
Where did Microsoft employ embrace or extend before extinguishing RoboVM? They bough Xamarin for Xamarin, and ended up with a RoboVM they didn't want. There was no RoboVM strategy there.
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