Help Decide Sandcastle's Fate

June 10, 2008 3:58 PM

Sandcastle - the .Net community equivalent of RDoc/JavaDoc and the spiritual successor of the now defunct NDoc – has been removed from CodePlex. It’s fate is currently up in the air and Microsoft is asking you for input on what should happen next. It was pulled down after the community at-large expressed reservations about Sandcastle being hosted on CodePlex while not being published under an Open Source license or even being posted in source form at all. According to the announcement on MSDN, the possible future for Sandcastle involves two scenarios:

Publish the source code for Sandcastle and revive this project in Codeplex

Migrate sandcastle to MSDN Code gallery at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com

I for one would love to see Sandcastle released as an open source project on CodePlex. It seems to me that Microsoft has had a great deal of success lately with releasing the MVC Framework as an open source project and I hope that they continue the trend. If you have used Sandcastle or foresee the need to have automatic code documentation generation on a project in the future, please do not hesitate to leave a comment letting the powers that be know how you feel.

Tags: sandcastle, codeplex, open source
Categories: Tools
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Comments (10)

6/10/2008 6:22 PM #

MVC isn't open source, but we all know what you mean

Zack Owens

6/10/2008 11:20 PM #

I'd encourage the Sandcastle author to continue releasing the binaries only. Everyone else will probably say "yeah, release the source" but do we really need the source?

I just don't want that project hosted on CodePlex, unless the source is available. Either CodePlex is an "open source" project hosting service, or it's a "let's release the binaries and hope no one asks about why the source isn't available" project hosting.

A lot of "community projects" (I've found several) are missing their source, for whatever reason, and I don't want us to be okay with that. So, I'd like CodePlex to be strict in their enforcement.

As much as everyone is dismayed by the takedown of Sandcastle, and as much as Anand is feeling the pain right now, hopefully we'll see a better CodePlex emerge from this. Don't stress yourself Anand, just do whatever you can handle for Sandcastle--no one's really upset about the source availability, you just can't stay on CodePlex.

Peter

6/11/2008 12:15 AM #

If you use the tool, or think you might want to, and you expressed surprise or befuddlement at the fact that it was taken off Codeplex, then yes, you want the source code, because it protects you from the product being obsoleted or mangled by Microsoft or anyone else in the future. Having the source code is your protection.

Jeffrey

6/11/2008 2:32 AM #

@Zack Owens,

I have to respectfully disagree regarding the "opensourceness" of the MVC framework, but I can certainly appreciate the POV that leads one to believe that software is only "open source" if it is modifiable.

From my perspective I have gained much by the continued release of the full source (including unit tests) of the MVC framework. As I've been developing a related MVC framework at work - that is based off the Msft MVC framework - being able to see the actual source (ie: not having to resort to Reflector) has been a great boon.

This may not be what you consider Open Source with capital letters, but I would submit it is still a vast improvement over the status quo.

Troy Goode

6/11/2008 3:09 AM #

@Peter,

Regarding "community projects" on CodePlex that are missing their source, I can't agree highly enough. In fairness to certain projects (such as RikMigrations - which I use frequently) that were once based in CodePlex but have since moved to GoogleCode, CodePlex doesn't seem to make it easy to remove a project if you are no longer maintaining it in the CodePlex repository. In fact, I've never even been able to find any easy way to remove myself as a developer/coordinator of a project I'm no longer interested in.

That said, I have to agree with Jeffrey's assesment of:

If you use the tool, or think you might want to, and you expressed surprise or befuddlement at the fact that it was taken off Codeplex, then yes, you want the source code

You may posit, as you have in your comment, that no one is REALLY upset about the lack of source code (just the lack of justice or what-have-you in hosting a non-OpenSource project on CodePlex), but that isn't really true. Many of us that rely upon projects like Sandcastle can't afford to have them just *poof* disappear. If Msft decided today to no longer support or continue the development of Sandcastle I would be keenly interested in its source being available for further development by the community.

6/11/2008 4:45 AM #

Most people don't care about the source because most people don't look into it. What they usually do is to demand a fix. Unfortunately that's what happened to NDoc, making the original developer to give up. There are a couple of attempts to make project survive but they seem weak. Sandcastle is at fault too as everybody as been waiting for it to replace NDoc.

We do need an alternative to NDoc. Please keep the project going...

Thanks...

Antao

6/11/2008 9:29 AM #

@Troy

"Open Source" isn't a meme that is left open to interpretations. It is a trademark of the open source institute, which is responsible for certifying whether or not a piece of software is open source or not.

The Open Source Definition (which can be read here http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd) is pretty clear about redistribution.

1. Free Redistribution

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

3. Derived Works

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

You can gain alot from having the source code, and even more from having the source code freely available, and it is definately an improvement over the status quo. But calling it open source is inaccurate.

Matt Briggs

6/11/2008 11:51 AM #

Hey, I hear you. Everyone wants the source available--that's what I'd like to call the "Gold option."

What I'm proposing is that most people are okay with the "Silver option", which is what we have today. It's not as good as the Gold option, but it's okay.

What you might keep in mind is that Anand (for whatever reason) may go with the "nothing option," especially if he's pressured to release the source. This disengagement may not happen immediately; it may take a few months--but we may end up with a dead Sandcastle.

You're not going to get anyone else on this thread asking for the Silver option, so I'm here to point out--a lot of us are okay with "just the binaries."

6/11/2008 12:44 PM #

@Matt: I'll concede the point re: Open Source having a more specific meaning and that I was using it incorrectly. Is there a term I'm unaware of for visible source that is released under a reference-like license?

@Peter: I don't think anyone is saying "open source or nothing," it was the MSDN post that specifically asks which people would prefer. If they don't want to release the source, fine, give us the binaries (though not on CodePlex).

6/11/2008 2:33 PM #

I would be happy with just the binaries. I use Sandcastle to generate help files, it's extremely invaluable to me in that sense. I don't really have the time nor the need to peruse the source and see how html is generated from xml or any of the other things that goes on, I could care less. I need to know what my software does, as does the team.

If the choice is to make it open source, go for it, but please have a binary form available as well potentially with md5 verification. In the very least, thanks for making the product available to begin with.

Lloyd

Troy Goode: SquaredRoot

ASP.Net, C#, MVC, and LINQ

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