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Stack OverflowWhat are the most relevant OSS projects for .NET?
[+48] [55] Scott Hanselman
[2008-10-02 22:02:37]
[ .net open-source ]
[ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/164809/what-are-the-most-relevant-oss-projects-for-net ]

Not a popularity contest, but if you were to elect some in some categories, what would be the names?

The only criteria are:

removed too specific tags - Sklivvz
Added subjective tag - Chris Pietschmann
[+121] [2008-10-02 22:07:55] GEOCHET

The mono project. [1]

[1] http://www.mono-project.com/

I wish I could give 2 votes! :) - Sklivvz
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[+52] [2008-10-02 22:08:11] RKitson

Persistence: NHibernate [1]

IOC: Castle Windsor [2], StructureMap [3]

MVC: Castle MonoRail [4]

Testing: NUnit [5]

[1] http://www.nhibernate.org/
[2] http://www.castleproject.org/container/index.html
[3] http://structuremap.sourceforge.net/Default.htm
[4] http://www.castleproject.org/MonoRail/
[5] http://www.nunit.org/

Don't forgot that ASP.NET MVC is released under MS-PL which, opinions aside, is an OSI approved license. - Richard Szalay
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[+37] [2008-10-02 22:15:35] Joe Brinkman

jQuery [1]

[1] http://jquery.com

(2) How is jQuery classified as .NET? - Bill the Lizard
(11) The question is "most relevant OSS projects for .NET" - doesn't necessarily mean written in .NET. Those were my thoughts at first, but jQuery is very relevant to .NET, particularly with it being shipped with ASP.NET MVC soon. - David Mohundro
I agree with David, jQuery is very much relevant to web apps developers - Luka Marinko
Stephan Walter would probably say that JQuery really is the answer to Microsofts first attempt at Ajax (Atlas). - Dr. Zim
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[+35] [2008-10-02 22:17:45] David Mohundro

The most relevant ones to me are the ones I use the most and are the most valuable to me I suppose.

Unit Testing Frameworks:

Mocking Frameworks:

  • Rhino.Mocks [3]
    • You could argue Oren Eini is a one man show, but he does take contributions :)
  • Moq [4]

IoC Frameworks:

Blog Engines:

Other:

[1] http://www.nunit.org/
[2] http://www.mbunit.com/
[3] http://ayende.com/projects/rhino-mocks.aspx
[4] http://code.google.com/p/moq/
[5] http://www.castleproject.org/container/index.html
[6] http://structuremap.sourceforge.net/
[7] http://www.dasblog.info/
[8] http://subtextproject.com/
[9] http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/
[10] http://code.google.com/p/wittytwitter/

(1) Isolation Frameworks!!! - Martin
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[+34] [2008-10-02 23:35:37] Scott Muc

log4Net [1]

Usually the first dependency I add to every .Net project I do.

[1] http://logging.apache.org/log4net/index.html

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[+29] [2008-10-02 23:14:57] Sklivvz

I think that SharpDevelop [1] should be very relevant here.

alt text

[1] http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/

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[+20] [2008-10-02 22:12:20] Joseph Daigle

The SubSonic [1] project.

[1] http://subsonicproject.com/

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[+19] [2008-10-02 22:09:30] takobell

Blog: BlogEngine.NET [1]

[1] http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/

This is one of the best OSS projects! - Chris Pietschmann
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[+18] [2008-10-02 22:44:21] Alan Le

FlickrNET API [1]

Paint.NET [2]

[1] http://www.codeplex.com/FlickrNet
[2] http://www.getpaint.net/

+1 for Paint.NET, it's great! - entity64
(4) unfortunately, Paint.NET is no longer open source. - Neil N
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[+16] [2008-10-02 22:21:19] Tigraine

AnkhSVN [1] - Great Tool for Visual Studio, completely done in .NET

[1] http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/

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[+10] [2008-10-02 22:11:57] penyaskito

Building frameworks: Nant.


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[+9] [2008-10-02 22:14:06] Schnapple

Wiki: ScrewTurn Wiki [1]

Jeff liked it so much he tried to donate to it [2], but they've apparently not even needed the money yet [3].

I've used it for about a year now on my development team to document tasks and so forth (i.e., what software do I have to have to do a full build today?, etc.) and it's been great.

[1] http://www.screwturn.eu/
[2] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001098.html
[3] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001158.html

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[+8] [2008-10-02 22:14:12] ScottKoon

I'd say the testing frameworks, NUnit, MB-Unit, and xUnit.net

SubText, dasBlog, dotNetNuke

Mono

MonoRail

jQuery

The IoC/DI frameworks - Ninject, StructureMap, Castle Windsor


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[+8] [2008-10-03 06:29:49] Gilles Bayon

IoC Frameworks:

Log:

  • log4net

PDF Library

ORM

Test

  • NUnit
  • Moq

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[+8] [2008-10-15 21:33:09] justin.m.chase

Boo [1]

[1] http://boo.codehaus.org

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[+7] [2008-10-02 22:08:51] alexmac

Watin and Nunit to unit testing frameworks


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[+7] [2008-10-02 22:27:21] Brannon

ASP.NET:
AjaxControlToolkit [1] (MS-PL)
Allows community contributions, has a large team on CodePlex.

Languages:
IronRuby [2] (MS-PL)
Allows community contributions, source code hosted at RubyForge.

[1] http://www.codeplex.com/AjaxControlToolkit
[2] http://www.ironruby.net/

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[+6] [2008-10-02 22:22:40] Justin Moore

For me: Umbraco [1], SubSonic [2] and I'm liking Gaiaware RAD Ajax widgets [3]

[1] http://umbraco.org
[2] http://subsonicproject.com/
[3] http://gaiaware.net/

(1) no more Gaiaware for me, jquery all the way - Justin Moore
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[+6] [2008-10-03 10:38:20] Bartek Szafko
  1. Cruise Control .NET
  2. CI-Factory
  3. Windows Installer Xml

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[+5] [2008-10-02 23:50:10] jrwren

Mono - the libs not the runtime and compilers including: Cecil, Mono Addins, and others unique to Mono GTK#

Castle - all of it

log4net nlog

Rhino-tools - all of ‘em

NHibernate (implied by above)

Boo - the extensible compiler is awesome.

MonoRocks - Mono inspired extension method library.

Ninject - because CF and Silverlight need IOCC love too.

NUnit & MbUnit

MonoDevelop

SharpDevelop

gnome-do - launchy/quicksilver for gnome.

boxerp - interesting databinding and enterprise application helper library

dasblog

subtext

C5 - because the BCL collection library is pathetic.

FlickrNet - cuz .net needs flickr love.

babysmash - my 17mo old loves it.

RSS.NET - a great easy to use rss lib - so good it went commerical, but the OSS version is still great.

MonoTorrent - http://monotorrent.com/ as a resident of Michigan I was pulling for the MSU student developed torrent lib, but Alan kicked but writing this library.

Gaia Ajax Widgets - very interesting.

JSC - the most awesome “compiler” that lets me write C# but target PHP, JS or ActionScript. Includes some libraries.

IKVM - for java interop

What is missing:

I don’t know of any WinForms libraries that make winforms better to use. I’d love to see this. But I still do winforms instead of WPF. Show me a WPF app that uses less than 30MB of RAM and I'll start singing WPF praises.

There are many free WPF libraries which are teasers from commercial vendors, some even open source, I think?


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[+5] [2008-10-15 20:42:24] Sean Kearon

PostSharp [1] - AOP for .Net.

[1] http://www.postsharp.org/

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[+4] [2008-10-02 23:41:28] RhysC

Most relevant?? For today MbUnit, RhinoMocks, Castle, NLog/Log4net, NHibernate, Nant. Those would be included in just about any of my Enterprise apps.


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[+3] [2008-10-02 22:09:18] Maudite

CMS/Web Framework: dotnetNuke [1]

[1] http://www.dotnetnuke.com/

(1) NO!!! Sorry but IMHO DNN is a failure waiting to happen. Terrible SEO support. Nearly impossible to create usable workflows. And trying to cleanly extend existing features like user registration is the stuff nightmares are made of. - Mike Glenn
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[+3] [2008-10-02 22:41:43] Chris Pietschmann

DotNetKicks [1]

[1] http://dotnetkicks.com

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[+3] [2008-10-03 04:24:25] Scott Saad

NAnt [1] is just awesome... period.

One library I have not seen up there yet is the one to help create PDF documents.

PDFsharp [2]

[1] http://nant.sourceforge.net/
[2] http://www.pdfsharp.com/PDFsharp/

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[+3] [2008-10-04 13:32:40] Stuart

For me... Subversion, TortoiseSVN, MonoRail, Windsor, NHibernate, Dojo Toolkit, Mono, MonoDevelop, Boo, nUnit, log4net, VirtualBox OSE, WinMerge


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[+2] [2008-10-02 22:08:45] Forgotten Semicolon

Another category would be ORM with SubSonic [1](Mozilla Pulic License) and NHibernate [2](LGPL) in there.

[1] http://subsonicproject.com/
[2] http://www.hibernate.org/343.html

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[+2] [2008-10-02 22:24:02] Sander Rijken

Follow up on AnkhSVN: SharpSvn [1], the library used by AnkhSVN to talk to Subversion

[1] http://sharpsvn.net/

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[+2] [2008-10-02 22:49:55] Slace

Script# [1] is one of my favs

[1] http://projects.nikhilk.net/ScriptSharp/

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[+2] [2009-04-02 08:49:01] Ali Kazmi

ASP.NET MVC


ASP.NET MVC is not an open source project. MSFT people is developing it. - tugberk
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[+2] [2009-06-11 11:24:42] Niels R.

Vici Project [1]: A coordinated and well-supported collection of free tools for building next-generation online applications for .NET.

  • Vici MVC: MVC Web Application Framework for .NET 2.0 or higher. (Formerly ProMesh.NET)
  • Vici CoolStorage: Fully typed Object Relational Mapping (ORM) library for .NET 2.0.
  • Vici Parser: .NET library for late-bound expression parsing and template rendering.
  • Vici WinService: Lightweight .NET library for creating Windows services.

More to follow in the future:

  • Vici Graphics (Not OSS, but free)
  • Vici dStyler (Not OSS, but free)
  • Vici Reports
  • Vici Wiki
[1] http://viciproject.com/

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[+1] [2008-10-02 22:20:54] Brian Chavez

+1 NHibernate


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[+1] [2008-10-03 19:32:11] Manoj Waikar
  • Castle Project
  • Spring.Net
  • NHibernate
  • Log4Net
  • NUnit
  • Rhino Mocks
  • Boo

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[+1] [2008-10-03 23:01:08] Lucas Goodwin

MVC - ProMesh.NET [1]

ORM - CoolStorage.NET [2]

[1] http://www.codeplex.com/ProMesh
[2] http://www.codeplex.com/CoolStorage

SharpTemplate and LazyParser too. The only set back is they don't have great exception handling so you need the source to figure out where you're going wrong - Chris S
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[+1] [2008-10-04 13:56:17] adolfojp

I like mojoportal but I don't know how "relevant" it might be.


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[+1] [2008-10-10 09:38:43] Chris S

Sandcastle [1]

MSDN style documentation builder for XML documentation, the follow on from Ndoc

[1] http://www.codeplex.com/Sandcastle

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[+1] [2008-10-23 06:19:30] Oscar Cabrero

cruiseControl.Net


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[+1] [2009-02-01 22:38:11] goldenratio

IronPython [1]

[1] http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=IronPython

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[+1] [2010-01-10 15:43:24] Tigraine

Although a shameless plug (since I'm one of the contributors to the project) there is another cool new project in the .NET ecosystem:

.Less [1] - A port of the popular Ruby Lib LessCss [2]

Less allows you to use variables, mixins and other cool language features inside CSS.

[1] http://www.dotlesscss.com
[2] http://www.lesscss.org

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[+1] [2011-05-21 12:11:26] Ahmed

Orchard [1] is a free, open source, community-focused content management system written in ASP.NET platform using the ASP.NET MVC framework. Its vision is to create shared components for building ASP.NET applications and extensions, and specific applications that leverage these components to meet the needs of end-users, scripters, and developers.

[1] http://www.orchardproject.net/

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[0] [2008-10-02 22:40:43] Chris Pietschmann

Virtual Earth JavaScript Intellisense Helper [1]

[1] http://codeplex.com/vejs

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[0] [2008-10-05 22:43:20] Gordon Zuehlke
  • NAnt: the OS project that's had the biggest impact on me... followed by (in no order)
  • AnkhSVN/Subversion
  • MonoRail
  • MbUnit
  • Rhino Mocks
  • Castle Windsor
  • NHibernate ...and I'm forgetting tons of great things like 7-Zip, FlexWiki

It's good to be .net


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[0] [2008-10-22 17:56:01] Glenn Block

Unity


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[0] [2008-11-11 18:55:53] sirrocco

DotNetKicks [1]

[1] http://dotnetkicks.com

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[0] [2008-11-11 19:03:52] Marcus Griep

I'd add in the C5 Generic Collection Library [1]. Whereas the .NET BCL generic collections contain interfaces, they aren't programmed to their interfaces. As well, the C5 collections contain a richer set of features in addition to being backed by academic research.

Check out the set of collections contained within in this post [2].

[1] http://www.itu.dk/research/c5
[2] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/198079/where-can-i-learn-about-the-various-types-of-net-lists#209563

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[0] [2008-11-20 22:27:51] Jim Moore

RDL Project - http://www.fyireporting.com/ - reporting toolset


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[0] [2008-12-07 01:21:08] Carlos Ble

DesktopRails for portable desktop applications development: http://desktoprails.osl.ull.es


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[0] [2009-01-18 17:45:40] Sun Liwen

Mono.Cecil [1] - An open source and even better replacement to System.Reflection. :)

[1] http://www.mono-project.com/Cecil

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[0] [2009-01-24 15:02:32] Erik Hellström

Composite Application Guidance [1]

[1] http://www.codeplex.com/CompositeWPF/

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[0] [2009-11-17 14:53:35] Petr Felzmann

S#arp Architecture [1]

[1] http://sharparchitecture.net/

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[0] [2010-05-25 09:59:29] kenny

Lots of great examples. Here are some I use that I don't think I saw listed:

Dependency injection: - autofac.dll

Linq: - HTMLAgilityPack.dll - LINQtoCSV.dll

Command line parsing: - mono.options.dll


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[0] [2011-04-28 08:41:19] Thomas

Continuous Integration:

[1] http://jenkins-ci.org

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[0] [2012-01-07 21:22:47] tugberk

I cannot beleive nobody mentioned about Nuget [1] and Nuget Gallery [2]. Others just popped up in my head:

[1] http://nuget.codeplex.com
[2] https://github.com/NuGet/NuGetGallery
[3] https://github.com/ninject/ninject
[4] http://code.google.com/p/mvc-mini-profiler/
[5] http://code.google.com/p/elmah/
[6] http://xunit.codeplex.com/
[7] http://facebooksdk.codeplex.com/
[8] http://razorgenerator.codeplex.com/
[9] https://github.com/maartenba/MvcSiteMapProvider

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[-1] [2010-02-21 03:17:26] afriza

FubuMVC [1]: Compositional, compile safe, convention-basedconfiguration for complex web applications.The MVC framework that doesn't get in your way.

[1] http://fubumvc.com/

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[-1] [2011-11-21 10:10:38] NN_

Nemerle programming language [1]

[1] http://nemerle.org

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