Contributing Projects to NETMF – Clarified

We have been very focused on getting version 4.1 out. This will be the first release that includes a contribution from outside of Microsoft marking the start of what we all hope will be a fruitful partnership. I was very happy to get the contribution in since we just opened the collaboration site a few months ago. That said, we learned a few things and we have gotten some feedback on how to improve the partnership. Here I will clarify the process by which features and bug fixes can be submitted by non-Microsoft contributors and how we can make this whole process more transparent.

· We are only talking about the core implementation of the code as it is shipped and supported by Microsoft. This process makes no attempt to restrict anyone from building whatever they want on the technology that is consistent with the broad licensing provisions.

· There continues to be a Core Technology team of Microsoft and non-Microsoft supporters of the platform who will be involved in the technical and architectural direction of the core implementation.

· The NETMF proposed feature discussion group is intended to be exactly that, an opportunity to propose an idea and have a discussion on the definition and the merits of the proposal. This discussion can be used to coordinate feature development outside the core implementation as well as in the core implementation.

· NEW - There was not enough feedback on the discussion group so it was not clear that ideas had been heard or not. Starting in about a week, the Core Technology team will respond to each idea with an assessment of whether it is a candidate for the core implementation.

· NEW - The criteria that will be used to assess the proposals are:

o Interesting to general audience

o Potential design and implementation are likely to be consistent with the size, performance , and power consumption objectives of the platform

o Higher priority is given to features that enhance the connected device support

· NEW – There was not enough transparency in the acceptance and tracking of proposed features. Starting by the time 4.1 ships, we will move the accepted candidates into a database on Codeplex.com where their progress can be tracked by anyone.

· Once the ideas have been accepted and based on their priority, the Core Tech team will work with the contributors to generate the necessary requirements and design documents. NEW -these will be posted on the NETMF Technical Resources pages for broad review.

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 04, 2010
  Where is the codebase? Looked on codeplex and didn't find it. Searched the internets.... no joy. Oh where where is the codebase???

• Anonymous
  September 07, 2010
  Currently in the porting kit download but coming soon to a Codeplex near you.