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How to lend a hand to NDoc and other non-MS Developer Tools

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I was forwarded an interesting suggestion today from the Product Feedback Center.  Here it is:

Put some developers on the open source nDoc project

We have used the XML documentation system with our C# code. Full integration with VS 2005 and .NET 2.0 is missing. Unfortunately, the developer for the open source nDoc project has not updated this project in some time. We do not have the resources nor knowledge base to offer our direct assistance to this project.

By time you read this my reply to the suggestion should have been propagated from our internal database to the feedback center.   But aside from the resource concern that's real there are some interesting questions this raises.

I'm honestly don't think there is consensus that it's our (Developer Solutions) team charter to do development work on projects that were born out of the community.  We (Microsoft) really don't like stepping on community toes and don't want to be seen as taking over/invading 3rd party territory.  But are there other ways we could help out projects like nDoc?

  • What if we highlighted more projects like nDoc from our developer centers to get more attention that might lead to more community contribution?
  • What about having some sort of awards for shared/open source development in the Visual Studio developer tools space?
  • What if had some project sponsorships we could give out each year to developers who take on projects like this? 

Other ideas?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2006
    I will say that i like all of your suggestions there in general for community projects. Any way that Microsoft can put the spotlight on projects like that is great.However, in the case of nDoc, i think the real issue at hand here is that Microsoft needs something like this built-in to Visual Studio (or as a PowerToy or something). VS2005 has added many tools for the developer so that it can be used across many of the phases of the development cycle. But one is still sorely missing - documentation. Sure, VS supports the XML comments for creating the documentation... that's the basis for all this work afterall. But without nDoc, i either have to pay a lot of money to a company to make those xml files useful, or i have to roll my own. Which i dont like to do when i don't have to.I definitely think this is one project that Microsoft should be more involved in. For others - i like the suggestions you have and i'm sure people will have more like them.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2006
    A combination of the last 2 sounds good. Like an MVOSS list. It should get people interested. Sponsorship is good if the funds can be distributed in a fair fashion, so that really works only on small projects/teams, and those are the hardest to find!

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2006
    First, let's get real - Microsoft as a whole has no qualms stepping on third-party toes. This may bother you personally, but MS has done this lots of times in the past.

    Second, I think that, in cases like this, it is actually beneficial to the customer for Microsoft to get involved. Adding this functionality into VS2005 adds value to that product and MSDN subscriptions. In this case, clearly there is a gap in that nDoc is not being actively supported enough by the communities to be updated, and I for one would love to see Microsoft get involved to help out, either by contributing to that project (which I think would be welcome by the community), by developing its own tool, or publishing an internal tool.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2006
    Yeah, what tzagotta said -- lets not lose sight of the issue nDoc, is apparently important to a number of people -- the capability to do XML documentation is supported by VS, but there's no way to do anything with that XML documentation outside of having the summary tooltip.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2006
    Microsoft could consider the approach that Collab.NET takes with Subversion. They've hired several developers to work on Subversion fulltime. However, these developers have to follow the same rules as any other developer in order to gain commit access. There is no special status given to them, they follow the same rules as other members of the community.I'm sure these various open source projects would welcome a full time resource from Microsoft who would contribute development efforts, as long as the developer worked within the group's established charter and there is no expectation of special treatment.Also, remember that some of these projects are BSD licensed. Technically you could take the code, attribute the authors, and then modify the code and use it in any way you see fit, just as long as you follow the license.I have a series on that topic (http://haacked.com/category/32.aspx).Although I think the community would appreciate the first approach over the second.

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 08, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 09, 2006
    Roy: It's probably worth talking about.  You make a lot of good points I hadn't considered when looking at this project as an alternative solution.

  • Anonymous
    February 23, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2006
    Hello Kevin,

    Just wanted to say NDoc is a wonderful tool, up there with the best commercial products, and you are a hero!

    Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    July 05, 2006
    Microsoft dropped the ball on the XML documentation system right from the beginning.  I don't understand the reluctance to at least reach parity with JavaDoc.  The functionality should be included with Visual Studio.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2006
    NDoc is a very useful open source project that generates reference documentation from .NET assemblies

  • Anonymous
    August 08, 2006
    I can understand not wanting to step on the community's toes, but when a project is abandoned, it doesn't hurt to step up to the plate. With an open source project like NDoc the worst that will happen (beyond the immature nippings of a select crowd) is that people who don't like your changes will fork the project. Either way, activity would return to it.

    It's not an issue so much now that Sandcastle is publicly available, but for the next time a popular community project goes dark, having some support would be quite useful.

  • Anonymous
    January 20, 2009
    PingBack from http://www.hilpers.com/292265-ndoc-ersatz

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2009
    PingBack from http://paidsurveyshub.info/story.php?title=scooblog-by-josh-ledgard-how-to-lend-a-hand-to-ndoc-and-other-non-ms