Microsoft has hired the creator of the SubSonic tool set and plans to use SubSonic as a key part of an upcoming platform.
Rob Conery founded the open-source SubSonic project, which helps a Web site build itself, according to SubSonics Web site. Conery blogged about the hire Oct. 26, with a host of observers chiming in to respond about the news.
According to the Web site, SubSonic is several things, including the following: “a Data Access Layer (DAL) builder that requires no code on your part, it builds itself at compile time with a full object layer and strongly typed collections; a complete utility tool set, complete with Rails-like scaffolding, migrations (DB Versioning) and code generators; a dynamic query tool that lets you use SQL Server and the Enterprise Library without having to know SQL; and an Object/Relational (OR) Mapper that extends to views and stored procedures so youre not locked into the OR/M thing.”
In his blog post, Conery said he had just signed an offer letter from Microsoft. “Ill be working with the ASP.Net guys on the new MVC [model-view-controller] platform as well as some other groovy things like Silverlight,” he said.
Conery said Scott Guthrie, a general manager in Microsofts developer division, told him it will be fun to see how Microsoft “can help you build out SubSonic a little more… maybe in a full-time capacity with us?”
Conery said SubSonic will be the “convention-driven tool set for Microsofts new MVC framework. Someone slap me.”
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However, he said theres nothing underhanded about Microsofts hiring him. “Some might smell a conspiracy here, but Ill leave that to the X-Files and Capn Crunch crowd to drum up all the evil reasons why the mother ship has beamed me up, ” he said.
SubSonic will remain under the same MPL (Mozilla Public License) 1.1 license it always has and will remain as completely open source as it always has, he said. “Nothing will change at all,” he said. “Im just getting paid, essentially, to work on it.”
Conery said he had been working under contract with Microsoft for about eight months before the company hired him.
He is not the first developer of open-source technology hired by Microsoft to boost its developer division. The company hired John Lam, a Ruby expert, and Jim Hugunin, who delivered an implementation of Python for .Net, among others.
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