Let's have some co-op
Phils latest point is a cracker. Microsoft cannot for a lot of reasons bundle OSS and if they do what harm would it pose to OSS projects left out in the cold.
If Microsoft had chosen to not write its own test framework, I fear they would have chosen NUnit over MbUnit simply because it’s more well known or for political reasons. Such a choice would have the potential to hurt a project like MbUnit in the never ending competition for users and contributors.
It's worth adding that Charlie and the NUnit guys and me and the MbUnit team are not in this to out do each other. Each project treads a different path and while we have some goals that are the same, each project has different paths. If nothing else the two teams are looking to co-op more on things such as reporting formats to make life easier for our users and applying the frameworks to CI tools etc. A bundle of this kind would have adverse effects on the MbUnit user base as much as a MbUnit bundle would damage NUnit, ZaneBug and CsUnit. In the interests of all our users we are more interested in co-op. Phil has some additional thoughts.
What I would have liked to have seen is for Team System to provide extensibility points which make it extremely easy to swap out MS Test for another testing framework. MS Test isn’t the money maker for Microsoft, it’s the whole integrated suite that brings in the moolah, so being able to replace it doesn’t hurt the bottom line.
I have heard that extensibility points may be a possibility in future versions but this may have several problems, if its wrapped in VSIP it may present a license issue, will the API's be useable as runner API's in each framework. I'd welcome a extension API in team system so MbUnit\NUnit and all the other folks and teams can plug into that eco system, but if its on the plan then Microsoft needs to start talking to us all. I once attended a great workshop at Redmond that exposed all the teams to a group of PHP folks and who in there brutal honesty helped Microsoft make a better product. Prehaps it is time Microsoft consider that to make this kind of thing a reality, or we may never really get any where.