The EventRecently on slashdot, a story about TestDriven.NET appeared. The story being:
Violent Offender writes with a touching story in The Register about Microsoft's awarding of its Most Valuable Professional credential to a British hobbyist, Jamie Cansdale, then turning around and threatening him with a lawsuit for the very software that won him the award. The article links to the amazing correspondence from Microsoft on Cansdale's site.
I did a little research on the topic and, while it didn't completely make the good guy/bad guy slant of the slashdot story invalid, it did reveal quite a few interesting things that aren't immediately apparent about the story. I thought this was interesting considering how often Microsoft gets pointed at as being a complete bad guy. Whether or not the grayness of this story is the actual truth with all those others, I can't say, but it's a very good illustration (IMHO) of different sides of a controversial issue.
So, the infoThe product (TestDriven.NET) allows you to run tests using open-source or Microsoft software from within the (free) MS Visual Studio Express environment.
The process to enable the product. Visual Studio Express does not have the add-in manager of Visual Studio, so Jamie Cansdale (Developer of TD.NET) has used a non-add-in process in order to load TestDriven.NET and add the
items to the Visual Studio interface.
Set 1 and
Set 2 of emails with Microsoft over the alleged license violation caused by TestDriven.NET.
The relevant license clause appears to be:
you may use the software only as expressly permitted int his agreement. In doing so you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways... You may not work around any technical limitations in the software
The
most technical description that I've been able to find, though it is worded with the kind of language you would expect to describe malicious code (such as a virus).
An interesting analysis of the discussion between Cansdale and his Microsoft contact.
Interestingly enough, the
next version of VS.NET Express does in fact include unit testing features, and Jamie Cansdale has stated that TestDriven.NET does in fact work on the Orcas platform.
TestDriven.NET itself is available for free "If you are a trial user, student or open source developer."
For "a software professional who uses TestDriven.NET on a daily basis", the cost is $95.
If you are "a company employee who wishes to make TestDriven.NET available for deployment on multiple machines" the cost is $135/1 unit, $1200/10 unit, and $10500/100 unit.
