Author: maartenvanstam

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Breaking: React Relicensed MIT

React License

Last few weeks there was a lot of fuzz going around React and other frameworks. The reason? Facebook changed their licensing on a couple of frameworks, React was one, to BSD + Patents License making it hard for many companies to use the very popular frameworks because they conflicted with their policies as there was a potential risk when there emerged a legal issue with Facebook.

Facebook tried to explain their point of view in a FAQ:
https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556

It didn’t help … the fuzz continued to grow bigger and bigger and support for React dropped like a dead fly.

So today there emerged this new blogpost:

Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

In short, they are going back to the MIT license, apologized for the loss of time searching for alternative frameworks and back to business.

So that was that … you may however wonder if the companies touched by the issue are open to return to the framework that might change their licenses in the future again.

It certainly showed the risk on using third party software, even if it was licensed in a very flexible license plan. Apparently licenses can be changed anytime (?) I’m not a lawyer but I wonder if it is even legal to switch licenses back and forth. What is the use of a license if you keep switching it?

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Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16291 for PC

RS3 Windows 10 Insider Preview 16291

Another day, another Insiders Build for the PC in the Fast Ring of the Redstone 3 (Fall Creators Update) flight. Not for Skip Ahead (Redstone 4) this time. This is still a stabilizing build to get ready for release soon.

Not much new, couple of fixes, but still a new thingy in this build: Resume from phones to PC with Cortana. If you started reading your articles or news on your iPhone or Android with the Cortana app you can continue reading on your PC.

Sadly enough … -after all these years- still no Dutch Cortana here so nothing to see for us Dutchies again Sad smile (wouldn’t you wish some features were completed first and deployed globally, like Cortana, instead of building new features? … oh well, the burden of a non English nation …)

Anyway … here is the official announcement:
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/09/19/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-16291-pc/#BgOMUi6wo341l4cO.97

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Help translating Visual Studio Code

Translate VS Code

Last week I found myself in the release notes for the August version of Visual Studio Code in a snapshot of top contributors for this release:

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This was fun, and unexpected… What I did was helping to translate strings used in Visual Studio for the Dutch language. I somehow ran into this, I really don’t know how, but I thought it was fun to do so I went over the English texts and titles and translated them into Dutch.

There are still several languages and phrases to be translated, so I’d like to point you to the translation project and hopefully you like to help out as well.

And why not? It would probably speed up the release of your most fav tool around to arrive in your own language!

How to Contribute

Please see general instruction from Getting Started with Community Localization page. Follow these simple steps to contribute.

  1. Sign up to Transifex free.
  2. Request access to a project.
  3. Start contributing. See What to contribute? and how to get help?

Fun factor … compete!

There is even a fun factor, and I’m sure they did this to push translation speed a bit forward Smile but also for internal reporting to show the boss how they got the community to do work for them.

What they did is create a sophisticated Power BI environment to list the progress in the project:

https://microsoftl10n.github.io/

Using this tooling you can see where you are in the list:

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So, get over there … select one or more languages and start translating (even if you just translate one or a few, everything helps) to get VS Code out in your language!

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SDN Cast 67 – Apple Event and Windows Insider Previews

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Another promising week with lots of information to share. A few Windows Insider Previews – for both Redstone 3 (Fall Creators Update) and Redstone 4 (vNext) but also the big Apple Event of the year where they announce all their new hardware stuff. This year Apple Watch 3, Apple TV, iPhone 8 and iPhone X saw the light and we discussed it all in our Dutch SDN Cast this week. Was it all new they presented? Is it all innovation?

Outside this big event we also talk about the news items of the week. The announcement of the new Windows Developer Day in London, transferring NuGet services to Microsoft, Team guest access, translating VS Code and much, much more (the links from the show are below).

So, if you understand Dutch, watch the recording of our 67th SDN Cast from this week!

Where can you find our 67th episode of our Dutch SDN Cast?
https://youtu.be/VuyYYPb22ac

Did you subscribe our Dutch SDN Cast channel already?

Subscribe your YouTube channel if you don’t want to miss a single broadcast. Usually we will broadcast on Thursday evenings at 8 PM but there can be a change of plans where we need to move to another time or day. So to be sure Subscribe to our channel on YouTube or go to http://www.sdncast.nl to see when the next episode is due.

Other news:

Windows Developer Day Returns!
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2017/09/14/windows-developer-day-returns

Transfer ownership of the NuGet.org service to Microsoft
https://maartenvanstam.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/transfer-ownership-of-the-nuget-org-service-to-microsoft/

Fall event: Microsoft Future Decoded
https://maartenvanstam.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/fall-event-microsoft-future-decoded/

Microsoft Teams Guest Access
https://maartenvanstam.wordpress.com/2017/09/12/microsoft-teams-guest-access/

Windows Template Studio 1.3 Released!
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2017/09/12/windows-template-studio-1-3-released

Apple Event
Apple Watch 3 with Cellular (but not in NL)
Apple TV 4K
iPhone 8 and 8 Plus
www.apple.com

Get Your Apps Ready for iOS 11!
https://blog.xamarin.com/get-apps-ready-ios-11/

Announcing Orleans 2.0 Tech Preview 3
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/orleans/2017/09/13/announcing-orleans-2-0-tech-preview-3/

Debug live apps in Azure with the Snappoints and Logpoints preview
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2017/09/13/debug-live-apps-in-azure-with-the-snappoints-and-logpoints-preview/

Windows Template Studio 1.3 Released!
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2017/09/12/windows-template-studio-1-3-released/

Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16288 for PC & Build 15250 for Mobile
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/09/12/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-16288-pc-build-15250-mobile

Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16362 for PC (Skip Ahead)
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/09/13/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-16362-pc-skip-ahead

Translate VS Code
https://www.transifex.com/microsoft-oss/vscode-editor/

Events

Events this Week

Microsoft Edge Web Summit 2017 – September 13, Online
https://summit.microsoftedge.com/

MixUG – Development Event – September 13, Gouda
https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/tickets-mixug-development-evenement-34890959800

Xamarin Dev Days – September 16th – Amsterdam
https://ti.to/xamarin/dev-days-amsterdam-2017

Upcoming events

DevIntersection Europe, September 18-20 – Stockholm
https://www.devintersectioneurope.com/#!

.NET Conf – September 19-21
http://www.dotnetconf.net/

Pluralsight Live, Salt Lake City, USA, 19-21 September
https://www.pluralsight.com/event-details/2017/live-2017

Building high performance web applications with Preact – 21 September – .NET Zuid – Rotterdam
http://www.dotnetzuid.nl/Meeting/20/building-high-performance-web-applications-with-preact

Microsoft Envision – September 25-27 – Orlando
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/envision/default.aspx

Ignite 2017 – September 25-29 – Orlando
https://ignite.microsoft.com
https://myignite.microsoft.com/sessions

Hybrid IT Event – September 26 – Maarssen, NL
http://www.fujitsu.com/nl/microsites/hybrid-it/event/index.html

4DotNet Events – Xamarin Event – 28 September, Nieuwegein
https://events.4dotnet.nl/xamarin-event

SDN Event 3 – October 6, Zeist, NL
https://www.sdn.nl/EVENTS/6-oktober-2017

OpenHack Amsterdam, October 9-11, Amsterdam
https://aka.ms/openhackamsinvite
Register:
https://www.microsoftevents.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x2564678abcd

Windows Developer Day – October 10, London, UK
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2017/09/14/windows-developer-day-returns

TechDays October 12-13, 2017 RAI Amsterdam 
http://www.techdays.nl/
https://techdays.msnlevents.net/content/eventselection.aspx?eventid=26152

SharePoint Saturday Belgium 2017, October 21, Brussels BE
http://www.spsevents.org/city/brussels/brussels2017

SharePoint Unite – October 24-26, 2017, Haarlem
https://sharepointunite.com/

Dev Intersection, October 30- November 2, Las Vegas
https://www.devintersection.com/#!/

Firebase Dev Summit – Amsterdam – October 31st
https://firebase.google.com/dev-summit-17/

Microsoft Future Decoded – London, UK – October 31-November 1
https://futuredecoded.com/

Web Summit – November 6-9 2017, Lissabon, Portugal
https://websummit.com/

Visual Studio Live! November 12-17 2017 Orlando, FL
https://live360events.com/events/orlando-2017/vslive.aspx

MixUG – Eindgebruikers Evenement – November 29 – Gouda
https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/tickets-mixug-eindgebruikers-evenement-34890983872

NgEurope, February 1-2, 2018 , Paris – France
https://ngeurope.org/

As usual we are always looking for presenters for our own events and Meetup’s so if you want to share something about hot technologies or just about something you implemented at work or in an App that could be interesting to our audience let us know so we can schedule you for one or our next SDN events or Dutch .NET Group Meetups.

This off course also goes for if you want to write a great article for us to publish in our SDN Magazines or at our SDN Website. The downside of publishing a magazine article is that there can be sometime between writing the article and publishing the magazine. So, if it is time critical sometimes the best option is to publish it on the www.sdn.nl website to get more speedy attention to the article.

As you see, options enough to address your audience with top notch information. You can even, if you like, be our guest in our SDN Cast shows to discuss the projects you are working on or other topics you master. We will instruct you how to connect with us and what it is you need to join the show.

Hopefully we will see you at our weekly web cast, for the schedule go to www.sdncast.nl for next week’s announcement to find out the day and time of our next broadcast or go to www.sdncast.nl/youtube to watch old episodes and videos that we recorded at our events. Don’t forget to subscribe our YouTube channel www.sdncast.nl/subscribe or go directly to YouTube not to miss any of our shows!

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Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16362 for PC (Skip Ahead)

RS4 Windows 10 Insider Preview 16362.1000

Just when I posted the blog about Insider Preview Build 16288 yesterday I received Insider Preview Build 16362 on my Skip Ahead machine and had to reboot for a relatively long boot process.

As you know there are two flights these days, one Redstone 3 (Fall Creators Update) flight and one Redstone 4 (Skip Ahead) flight. The Redstone 3 flight is now almost ready and on Build 16288 but Redstone 4 is just starting and as of today on Build 16362:

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/09/13/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-16362-pc-skip-ahead

As they mention: “Because we are just beginning development for RS4, Insiders shouldn’t expect to see a lot of big changes or new features just yet. Our focus remains getting the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update ready for release!”

There are some improvements, like the improved boot experience where the boot process is able to use your settings to show information according to your personal settings (this is an Opt-out option, so you can disable it) and Narrator improvements among a long list of smaller fixes.

If you don’t have Skip Ahead, you still need to wait until they open up the program again (to be expected just after the Fall Creators Update is released). All others … enjoy your new Build!

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Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16288 for PC

RS3 Windows 10 Insider Preview 16288

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UPDATE:
Insider Preview Build 16288 for PC is now pushed to the slow ring. This usually indates that the version is becoming more stable to be trusted for a larger audience to be installed. We are getting closer to the final build …. but this isn’t the one according to Dona!
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It’s been a (relative) long time between this Insider Preview and the previous Insider Preview … The Windows 10 Insider Previews cadence just before the last one was really high, maybe more that 3 a week. With almost 11 days between this one and the previous one if feels like it took for ages to get this out.

One of the changes in this 16288 build (Redstone 3, not available on Skip Ahead – the Skip Next is already on 16353, see https://maartenvanstam.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/redstone-4-windows-10-insider-preview-build-16353-for-pc-skip-ahead/) is that the watermark is gone. There used to be a version number in the lower right-hand corner with preview versions but that is history now.

So is this the final build? Well no …. the version is branded Version 1709 and we are living in September 2017 but it is not ready yet, at least that is what Dona Sarkar mentioned in the official announcement:

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/09/12/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-16288-pc-build-15250-mobile

Even the desktop watermark might return within time …

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Microsoft Teams – How to enable Guest access

Teams

Yesterday Microsoft announced they enabled Guest Access. At that time I didn’t have it yet so I wasn’t able to show you how to enable it.

By default Guest Access, guests outside your own Office365 tenant, is disabled. To enable it you need to enable it in the admin settings. To do so log in to your tenant with an admin account (I created a different user in the admin role only so if I need to admin some functions or features I log in as the other user and do what I need to do).

Under Settings – Services & add-ins there is these days an Microsoft Teams entry:

image

You already used this simply to enable Teams (unless this is the first time you use it). So if all is ok you already see that Teams is enabled.

Teams Admin II

Under “Settings by user/license type” you see a combo box with (in my case) “Business & Enterprise” or “Guest”. If you already enabled Teams for your tenant the “Business & Enterprise” option had the checkbox “Turn Microsoft Teams on or off for all users of this type” set to On.

Now you received an extra option, you can now check “Guest” as user/license type and also turn the checkbox “Turn Microsoft Teams on or off for all users of this type” to On.

Teams Admin

After enabling this you the team owner should be able to add users from other tenants. Yes you read it correctly … only from other tenants. The users must have a valid Work or School account:

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If your guest really has an Office 365 work or school account all is well:

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and a mail is sent to the guest:

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Enjoy your guest access in Microsoft Teams!

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Microsoft Teams Guest Access

Teams

Microsoft introduced Microsoft Teams a while ago, scaring Slack having a potential competing product in a way that Slack printed a page size advertisement in the New York times and online on Slacks blog:

https://slackhq.com/dear-microsoft-8d20965d2849

The community was extremely enthusiastic around the release … until they found out that only team members could be added from their own tenants. Another thing was that Microsoft Teams is only available for paying Office 365 (so called business accounts) and EDU accounts (free for education).

Especially the limited team member scope was reason for the community to compose a UserVoice request:

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/16911109-external-access-and-federation

Well, Microsoft heard it and promised to solve it in June, delayed it twice but (partially) delivered today:

https://blogs.office.com/en-us/2017/09/11/expand-your-collaboration-with-guest-access-in-microsoft-teams/

It is a first step, you now should be able to invite guests from other tenants. I just tried and still not possible hear, but I’m sure it will be soon. The delivery method on Office 365 often is trickled down in segments so I’m apparently not in the first batch.

Next in line will be guest access for MSA (Microsoft Account) types of guests. Another improvement, who doesn’t have an MSA (especially if you want to use Microsoft Teams Smile).

Interesting part of all of this is that the UserVoice specifically requested NOT to limit guest access to MSA accounts:

“Finally, making external parties sign up for a Microsoft account (such as Hotmail) to authenticate against any collaboration service does not work, and better approach is required and needed.”

In other words, the request was to open Teams up for all types, not only Microsoft based accounts. From a business point of view, there is something to say for limitation to Azure AD accounts (and eventually MS accounts) to be able to at least getting some user context en improving security to where potential critical business information can be shared.

From a developer’s perspective I guess we can expect interfaces to automate team member management and extended APIs. For now let’s wait for the next step, adding MSA guest access first.

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Transfer ownership of the NuGet.org service to Microsoft

NugetToNETFoundation

NuGet just announced, by word of Jon Galloway (.NET Foundation) and Karan Nandwani (Microsoft) in their blogpost that NuGet transferred ownership of the NuGet.org service to Microsoft:

Changes to NuGet.org service management, and performance improvements in China

What this means is that in order to maintain a solid response time of the NuGet service this service has been transferred to Microsoft.

One of the main reasons was the lack of performance for instance in China. My guess is that this is related to the way the Chinese government manages the data infrastructure in China and requires parties to comply to certain regulations. Microsoft obviously has a better position in China to provide services over there.

Keep in mind that NuGet.org is not transferred as a whole, quote:

“The NuGet open source codebase (both the NuGet gallery and the NuGet client) will remain open source and continue as .NET Foundation supported projects under the same terms as before.”

Hopefully we will see an improvement of the NuGet service response times (as said, especially .NET developers in China will benefit significantly) and all will remain to be good.

 

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Fall event: Microsoft Future Decoded

Microsoft Future Decoded

Microsoft will most likely announce their new Surface devices or other new stuff in London, UK on October 31th this year.

At least this is the rumor that arrived at the internet this week. As we all know, these announcements are usually (over the last couple of years) done by Panos Panay, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Devices.

And guess what … Panos is also mentioned on the Microsoft Future Decoded website as one of the keynote speakers among many other hot shots from the company.

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According to the website (see above) this event will provide you a view forward in the future to present you “an inspired vision of the digital business of tomorrow”.

Not sure if the ‘hardware event’ will be separate from this one, but my guess is that this will be the event showing the new devices (and as said the vision for the upcoming year).

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So, be nice to your piggy bank as there are new money burners to expect in about two months!