Why isn't the Bing Maps Ajax v7 control Open Source?

Question

There isn't anything secret within the Bing Maps Ajax v7 control allowing Bing Maps to function that Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and OpenLayers doesn't already do. So, I really do not see any negative side affects to the control being made open source.

In fact a huge benefit of Open Sourcing the control would be that community members could actually help make it better. I for one would definitely be interested in helping out with the project.

Also, another related question surrounding this is why can't we host the javascript files for the control on our own servers? We could shoose which version we want and MS wouldn't be able to break all our apps by pushing out a suprise update that isn't supposed to break anything.

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Microsoft MVP - Bing Maps
Blog: http://pietschsoft.com | Web.Maps.VE - ASP.NET AJAX Bing Maps Server Control

Answer 1

If they made it open source people would make new versions of the control which suited their needs and may make them available to others. This would eventually resulting in multiple versions of the control being out there. This would also means that the control would not be hosted by MSFT which could reflect badly on MSFT if the control is hosted on a slow server, thus making it load slowly. The other big issue is support. Paying customers get technical support and that is a big part of why people pay to use Bing Maps in the first place. If it's open source then supporting it becomes much more difficult for MSFT than it is now. 

As for hosting it yourself, if you hosted MSFT would not be able to make any guarantees thus their SLA's would not be valid. Paying customers would not go for this.  Again, hosting the control yourself in the ends makes for more headaches and can become a disaster very fast. I have seen applications that have done this and now they need to be migrated from v3 to v7. Also, by hosting it users lose out on any new features that come out. 

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Windows Live Developer MVP - http://rbrundritt.wordpress.com | http://inknowledge.co.uk

Answer 2

It could off course be "open source" but under a more restrictive version of the various licenses so that we could only contribute back into the core control not branch into our own re-distributed controls but of course that would be hard to police. It would however be something that made bing stand out from the other controls as a developer focused api

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Brian @ Earthware - UK interactive mapping web developers http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog | http://www.twitter.com/earthware | Windows Live Developer MVP

Answer 3

You could argue that any javascript program is, by definition, open source. Just point your browser to http://ecn.dev.virtualearth.net/mapcontrol/mapcontrol.ashx?v=7.0 and there you go - source ;)

I think releasing the entire control to be truly "open source" (i.e., in an unobfuscated javascript format, and with possible changes to licensing) is neither likely nor necessarily desirable. I can't see how this would benefit Microsoft or 99% of users who use the control. However, there is that 1% of developers who both have the technical knowledge and desire to improve the control and, perhaps, for those cases MS could consider some sort of source-code sharing arrangement.

MS already have several schemes in place for sharing source code with developers. e.g.: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/default.mspx

I don't think that the entire source code would have to be released - just particular sections of it that the Bing Maps development team are clearly having trouble with themselves (infoboxes, for example). Developers could sign an agreement restricting them from creating extra forks of the software, but they could still gain an advantage from understanding the true nature of the code functions (rather than the often erroneous method reference published on MSDN), and bugs could be found, resolved, and passed back to MS for future releases.

Of course, I can't see any of this actually happening - developers aren't even told at the moment when a new release is coming, let alone being involved in its creation, but there's wishful thinking for you...

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twitter: @alastaira blog: http://alastaira.wordpress.com/

Answer 4

Yes, JavaScript is by design "source available", but open source would be better.

As far a slow server making it look bad, I think the bugs and incompleteness of the current version v7 Ajax control do more damage in that department than I ever could hosting the js file myself. Afterall, all the web service calls and imagery will still be downloaded from Microsoft. Also, in regards to the SLA, they could just state in the agreement that you must use Microsoft's official CDN hosted version of the script in order to have the guaranteed uptime.

The risk of multiple branches/versions of the control being released by people is really a non-issue. There really aren't that many people that would do it, and MS could pick a license that could prevent that anyway. After all, just look at projects like ASP.NET MVC and jQuery and you'll see proof that people just don't do that.

Overall, I've been extremely frustrated with all the bugs and incomplete features of the v7 Ajax control. The documentations is incomplete which makes me look at the hard to read, condensed source code to figure some things out. It is also evident that the Infobox support was just slapped together.

An alternative to open sourcing the control would be to actually let use MVP's and possibly other devs to give input on new features and to provide us a competent bug reporting system such as MS Connect.

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Microsoft MVP - Bing Maps
Blog: http://pietschsoft.com | Web.Maps.VE - ASP.NET AJAX Bing Maps Server Control