This week, Microsoft announced that it will no longer lead the IronRuby and IronPython projects. Instead, the company has tossed the ball to the open source community.
IronPython will be lead by Miguel de Icaza, Michael Foord, Jeff Hardy and Jimmy Schementi. Schementi and de Icaza will run IronRuby as well.
Microsoft’s Jason Zanders is presenting this change as a good thing, and maybe it is, but Microsoft has been pulling staff from these projects for at least the last year.
So rather than just letting the projects die, Microsoft is banking that the open source community will work to keep them going and that .NET will be a relevant platform for the future.
“We are looking forward to this new level of involvement from the IronPython and IronRuby communities, and think it will help advance the languages even further,” Zanders said.
