Technically the restrictions already exist, just as a part of the development experience.

- .NET Hot Reload is only implemented on Windows. It requires support in the .NET runtime, which is technically possible to implement, but the team has not gotten around to implementing it for years. This doesn't have to do with the issue around MS removing the "dotnet watch" command, it's for the "Edit and Continue" feature in IDEs.[1][2]

- MS was considering deprecating Omnisharp, the open-source language server that implements C# support for VS Code, and replacing it with a closed-source version. Since the announcement, commits to omnisharp-vscode have dropped off significantly. The lack of Omnisharp would mean there would be no real open-source C# development environment for Linux anymore, since MonoDevelop was abandoned a few years ago.[3]

[1] https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RIDER-31366/EditContinu...

[2] https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/issues/23685

[3] https://github.com/omnisharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/5276

> MS will put some arbitrary restrictions on .net or some part of its toolchain.

I doubt this. Microsoft's monetary strategy around .NET for a number is years has been "look at how easy you can deploy/run/monitor your .NET app on Azure!", I don't see that changing to anything else unless there's a massive change of priority and executive leadership at Microsoft.

They certainly COULD do some of that stuff, but so much is open at this point, that I tend to think that a consortium of large businesses with hundreds of billions on the line would get together and form the .ORG alliance or something like that to rebrand and make it fully independent from MS. The entire runtime and compiler are MIT licensed so with enough motivation provided, Microsoft's customers could easily break away, hire their top .NET engineers, and build an entirely independent ecosystem.

I just can't imagine it makes any business sense to be that hostile in today's world.