Microsoft dragged its developer base into a losing battle against open source and open standards that lasted for decades. And yet, despite its recent and thorough embrace of openness, Microsoft continues to provide new proprietary solutions to its developers and customers alongside its more open offerings, especially in Windows and other legacy products. Doing so seems like an unnecessary delay to the inevitable shift that has happened elsewhere in the company and in the broader industry.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post in the Programming Windows series, and this entry is most decidedly out of order with the rest. It could, in fact, be viewed as a potential summary for the entire experience. The first—and completed—half of the Programming Windows story concerns the pre-.NET days, and I played an active role in that world as it unfolded between 1985 and 2001. The second half, of course, concerns .NET and everything that has happened since, and I was more of an outside observer during this period.