NAnt vs. SDC build tools
What the crap is this? NAnt is my product of choice for running automated builds in .NET. Like most good build tools, NAnt is GPL and free as in liberty.
So along comes .NET SDC Solution Build & Deployment Process & Tools which apparently has been out for like two years and does many of the same things as NAnt but is supported by Microsoft and not free as in liberty, just free as in beer. What gives? Microsoft made this tool that looks an awful lot like NAnt itself just to get around the GPL. In the second comment (from 2003) on the homepage for this tool one of the creators says this:
There is also an issue with using NANT that it is under GPL. Unfortunately, this makes it hard for a Microsoft employee to build anything around the tool without potentially exposing MS to legal problems.
Now, I’m not clear about this… I understand that some people are WAY against the GPL because it is too unrestrictive… it requires too much of your product to be thrown open, yadda yadda yadda… but using NAnt in your build process doesn’t require anything to be GPLed, right? And making custom additions to NAnt doesn’t require that I immediately release the source code, right? If I build something around NAnt and I don’t re-release it and re-brand it then I’m fine. But I can make whatever customizations I need to. So what gives, eh?
Oh, and check out Cruise Control.NET.