Debunked: Microsoft Said It Will Open Source VB6

[dilettante]

Hmm. Confirmed eh?

We'll see, and if it happens we'll see what it might mean.

http://reddevnews.com/articles/2011/...ource-vb6.aspx

[vbgamer45]

Full article here
http://developers.slashdot.org/story...en-Source-VB-6

This is pretty good news I wonder what parts will be opensourced. I would like to see either the runtime or compiler parts myself.

[dilettante]

Posted here earlier at http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=650411

Not sure it means a thing though.

[dilettante]

Er, note this bit:

We contacted Microsoft for response to this story. A Microsoft spokesperson said the story was not confirmed by Microsoft, but the statement she gave did not deny the story. In reads, "The plan to open source [VB6 on] CodePlex is rumor, and has not been confirmed by Microsoft."

[Vbstr]

if they do open source this, what does this mean? you think it'll become popular again?

[Vbstr]

Kathleen - Unfortunately you are the victim of someone's practical joke. Today a member of the developer community started a rumor that VB6 was going to be released as open source software via CodPlex. There is no truth to this rumor. There are no plans to open source VB6. Doug Seven Director of Product Management Visual Studio Tools & Languages Microsoft

[dilettante]

Pretty much what I expected all along.

[cyborg]

http://developers.slashdot.org/story...en-Source-VB-6

Finally!

[EntityX]

I've never used VB6. One of the comments under the article :

That's nice and all, but does anyone care?

I don't since I never used it. How many people will study the source code?

[reacen]

Oh my god

Edit: Oh no, wait: http://reddevnews.com/articles/2011/...ource-vb6.aspx

[tr333]

http://twitter.com/#!/dseven/status/71359684904366081
http://twitter.com/#!/dseven/status/71352709785198592

[Cube8]

Only in our dreams!!!

[Nightwalker83]

It was a joke! It wasn't an official Microsoft representative that posted it. I have also requested this thread merged with Dilettante's thread on the same subject in the general developer section.

[si_the_geek]

I've merged the various threads on this topic together.

While the idea of VB6 becoming open source is appealing, it certainly doesn't seem to be valid at the moment.

[esposito]

if they do open source this, what does this mean? you think it'll become popular again?

You bet it will.

If only it were true...

[esposito]

Only in our dreams!!!

Knowing MS's greed, I wouldn't have expected anything else.

[dilettante]

Cue the trombone folks.

Move along, nothing to see here.

[LaVolpe]

Cue the trombone folks.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Your post should be moved to the top of this page

[Shaggy Hiker]

You bet it will.

I know that you are a fan of VB6, as I was for several years, and I understand at least a part of why you miss it so much, but why do you think that open sourcing VB6 would make any difference? Is it really that hard to get a copy of it now? I can get copies, and have one or two around, but that's through whatever the Universal Subscription got turned into. Is the decline of new users really due to a lack of availability, or a realization that .NET is so much better for most users? Of course, if the other rumor, that persistent rumor about VB6 runtimes not being included in future Windows versions were true, that would make the question moot, since everyone would abandon VB6 entirely. I don't believe that rumor, either, though.

[ThEiMp]

Cool. I need a compiler for my computer project, that I am doing in VB6 anyway!!

[esposito]

Why do you think that open sourcing VB6 would make any difference?

Because someone would surely take care of upgrading it and transforming it into something like Delphi.

[ThEiMp]

-- Why, in the digital world would they want to do something like that???

[dilettante]

By "like Delphi" I assume he means the option of compiling your program, various libraries, and the runtime into one memory sucking monolith that doesn't share RAM with other programs via the DLL mechanism.

But I could be wrong. Not sure whatever else is that different about Delphi though, aside from sucking - and I have nothing against Pascal as a language. I have Delphi 2 and 6 here and over the years I've wanted to like it but I seldom go back and fire it up. Don't even have it installed anywhere at the moment.

Sort of an ugly, not-invented-here, and backbiting user community too.

[esposito]

By "like Delphi" I assume he means the option of compiling your program, various libraries, and the runtime into one memory sucking monolith that doesn't share RAM with other programs via the DLL mechanism.

But I could be wrong. Not sure whatever else is that different about Delphi though, aside from sucking - and I have nothing against Pascal as a language. I have Delphi 2 and 6 here and over the years I've wanted to like it but I seldom go back and fire it up. Don't even have it installed anywhere at the moment.

Sort of an ugly, not-invented-here, and backbiting user community too.

Yes, Delphi is such an ugly and resource-consuming development tool that Microsoft decided to spend 8.5 billion dollars to buy a piece of software written in that language:

As you certainly know Microsoft last week announced the acquisition of Skype, one of the largest of the company history. In fact, they paid 8.5 billion dollars for the world-known virtual phone company. [...] The Skype client for Windows, by large and far their most successful and commonly used one, is written in Delphi. [...] From the developer perspective, the real and valuable point is to try to figure out how much the decision to use Delphi was a good one for Skype in the first place, if it contributed to the product success and the company success, and what if they had picked a different development tool. I think the answer to this question highlights some of the most positive features of Delphi for ISVs who want to make the distribution of their applications easy.
The fact you don't need a run time environment (such a Java or .NET) makes the distribution of a Delphi program significantly simpler than a C# or Java application. Also, it makes it possible to support a larger number of Windows versions from a single executable. Now the Skype download is quite large, but it used to be smaller in the early days, when bandwidth was more limited. Still, not requiring dozens when not hundreds of Megabytes of libraries makes it smaller than most managed applications. Beside not needing libraries, there are also no COM component or other libraries requiring a specific configuration on Windows, again making the deployment and installation quite simple.

In case you are interested in this topic, you can read the entire article here:

http://blog.marcocantu.com/blog/micr....html#FeedBack

[Nightwalker83]

resource-consuming

I believe you have just described every Microsoft product that I can remember.

[ThEiMp]

How about feature-less, so that you keep on buying the later products!!

[esposito]

How about feature-less, so that you keep on buying the later products!!

I'm not sure I have understood what you mean. Can you expand a little bit?

[ThEiMp]

--Just adding comments to the second last poster...

[esposito]

I believe you have just described every Microsoft product that I can remember.

Yeah, the pot calling the kettle black. It's not unusual to find people who accuse non-MS's products of being affected by the shortcomings that characterize MS's software.

[akhileshbc]

Why not VB6 fans could create a new version of VB all my themselves from scratch ? I think, there are several MVPs and brilliant minds out there among those who love VB6. So, if they spend some time together, I think, they could end up in creating the language themselves ! Isn't it so ?

Since Microsoft abandoned the classic VB, it's fans could consider gathering permission from Microsoft, for their development in the new version !

Also, would it be easy to make changes in the code, if MS would provide VB as opensource as compared to developing one from scratch?

[Jonney]

Link:

http://reddevnews.com/articles/2011/...ource-vb6.aspx

“Microsoft announces to mvps at #msteched that VB6 will be released as open source on codeplex end of june! w00t.”

[RhinoBull]

That was a joke of the century. Let it go.

[dilettante]

Never happen. They don't want to admit they lost the source years ago either though.

[arunb]

ROFL.. has Microsoft given anything for free ???

...except of course BSOD..

[Hack]

I've merged the various threads on this topic together.

Another one popped up yesterday that I just found, and now that is merged with this thread as well.

[dilettante]

Why not VB6 fans could create a new version of VB all my themselves from scratch ? I think, there are several MVPs and brilliant minds out there among those who love VB6. So, if they spend some time together, I think, they could end up in creating the language themselves ! Isn't it so ?

Creating a good compiler is a very difficult thing to do.

Then you'll want a good IDE, supporting libraries, and associated development tools - though for tools you might borrow stuff already provided by the Windows SDK (resource compiler, linker, etc.). Still, a huge effort.

It has been attempted quite a few times, so there are a bunch of open and closed source, free and for-pay Basic compilers out there for Windows. Successful? Well, we're here talking about VB6 so I'd say not successful enough.

[akhileshbc]

Creating a good compiler is a very difficult thing to do.

Then you'll want a good IDE, supporting libraries, and associated development tools - though for tools you might borrow stuff already provided by the Windows SDK (resource compiler, linker, etc.). Still, a huge effort.

It has been attempted quite a few times, so there are a bunch of open and closed source, free and for-pay Basic compilers out there for Windows. Successful? Well, we're here talking about VB6 so I'd say not successful enough.

Thanks for the info

[esposito]

Creating a good compiler is a very difficult thing to do.

Then you'll want a good IDE, supporting libraries, and associated development tools - though for tools you might borrow stuff already provided by the Windows SDK (resource compiler, linker, etc.). Still, a huge effort.

It has been attempted quite a few times, so there are a bunch of open and closed source, free and for-pay Basic compilers out there for Windows. Successful? Well, we're here talking about VB6 so I'd say not successful enough.

It's amazing that after more than ten years (a lifetime in the IT world!) since VB6 had been released we are still here talking about it. Doesn't that prove how wrong MS were when they decided to abandon VB6? They are still trying to convince their customers that VB.NET is the successor to VB6 but the simple fact that this forum is still alive and kicking makes us understand that a lot of developers just don't want to switch to byte code.

[Nightwalker83]

It's amazing that after more than ten years (a lifetime in the IT world!) since VB6 had been released we are still here talking about it. Doesn't that prove how wrong MS were when they decided to abandon VB6? They are still trying to convince their customers that VB.NET is the successor to VB6 but the simple fact that this forum is still alive and kicking makes us understand that a lot of developers just don't want to switch to byte code.

The only thing I can think of that is missing is an easy way of converting vb6 to VB.Net.

[Shaggy Hiker]

It's amazing that after more than ten years (a lifetime in the IT world!) since VB6 had been released we are still here talking about it. Doesn't that prove how wrong MS were when they decided to abandon VB6? They are still trying to convince their customers that VB.NET is the successor to VB6 but the simple fact that this forum is still alive and kicking makes us understand that a lot of developers just don't want to switch to byte code.

Not really, of course. After all, I still maintain programs written in VB6, and there are probably still some schools that still teach it. There are probably millions of deployed VB6 programs still running. After all, there are still COBOL programs out there, even though that language has been dead for FAR longer. Since COBOL was around before the whole computer revolution took off, and Classic VB only showed up after Windows 95, the number of Classic VB programs should dwarf the number of COBOL programs, yet COBOL is still around, and thus, so will be Classic VB. That says nothing about the program, though, it only speaks to reluctance to change.

As I've said before, I have used both .NET and VB5/6 extensively. I loved them all, in their time, but I would never go back to Classic VB willingly. It just lacks too many features.

Of course, it will all be moot if MS stops shipping the VB runtime with each new OS release. If it can be installed after the fact, then it will be, but otherwise...