Kevin Southworth

A colleague and I have been discussing lately the relative lack of open-source software projects that are written in .NET languages (normally C# or VB.NET).  We've been searching for a web-based tool to help us with: task tracking, bug tracking, project management, help desk/support tickets, project scheduling, client/customer interface (where clients can login and check status of their projects).

Searching for these types of open-source projects on Google, Sourceforge, and all the usual places turns up a LOT of PHP, Perl, Python, Java projects, but hardly any .NET projects!  However, just because there are a lot of projects out there in these other languages doesn't mean they are any good (as we're finding out).

My feeling about most open-source projects is that they never really get the "spit and polish" of a commercial application.  Of course there are some outstanding open-source projects that rival many commercial offerings (Apache Webserver, Subversion source control, and the Linux Operating System immediately come to mind) but for the most part the projects you see out there were likely written (or at least started) by one developer who was probably motivated by one of the following:

• Learning a new programming language
• Needed a program/application to behave in a very specific way
• The joy of programming just for the fun of it (yes it can be fun!)

The problem with this is that it seems most open-source projects seems to fall in the realm of that first bullet, where the develope is learning a new language and just needs a project to chew on.  As a result, most of the time these projects are always "in development" or they simply aren't up to par in other areas such as Usability, Reliability, or Feature Set.  Also, most of the time the source code is not something you'd want to touch with a 10ft pole!

However, it's when you combine those last two bullets that you can get some great open-source software like Apache or Linux.  These projects are written by smart and dedicated guys (and gals) who are there for the joy of it.

But back to my original question. Where are all the really cool and blog-worthy open-souce .NET applications?  I know there are some great ones out there (DotNetNuke, NUnit, Commerce Starter Kit, SubSonic) but it pales in comparison to other non-Microsoft languages.

Hmmm...maybe I should shut up and start an open-source .NET project....