ECMA standard that has been implemented by various groups including
Microsoft, Corel (Rotor), Novell (Mono), and Gnu (Portable.NET).
-Matt
On Jun 10, 2004, at 2:41 AM, Jim Davis wrote:
> Although since the terms "proprietary" and "standard" are not,
> themselves
> defined in this context it's an interesting, but ultimately unwinnable
> argument. ;^)
>
> The most appropriate definition of "proprietary" seems to be
> "privately
> owned and run" - which seems to apply clearly to Java. In other
> words Java
> is proprietary because Sun is the proprietor. Not of the language -
> Sun,
> IBM, Microsoft, etc all have Java implementations - but rather of the
> definition of the language.
>
> "Standard" is much more difficult to pin down: it's a complex
> word. Cases
> can be made that any programming language is a "standard" in that
> every
> programming language has certain base levels of quality and
> functionality
> (or "standards"). However "ECMA Standard" is simple - they define it
> for
> us:
>
> "A Standard or a Technical Report is a formal document prepared by an
> Ecma
> Technical Committee and approved by the Ecma General Assembly. A
> majority of
> at least two-thirds of all the ordinary members is required for
> approval."
>
> In that sense there's no doubt that C# is an ECMA standard. However
> it
> still can be proprietary insofar as proprietary is also an
> implication of
> ownership. In this case I think the label "proprietary" would
> definitely
> fit any language with only one vendor even if that language could, in
> theory, be implemented by other vendors.
>
> I don't know of any C# vendor other than MS so I (and I'm sure many
> others)
> consider it a proprietary technology despite its status as an ECMA
> standard.
> Just within the definition of the words you can definitely be both
> "proprietary" and "standard" - in fact many things to which the term
> "de
> facto standard" applies will generally be both.
>
> This also leads to a discussion of "Open" as applying to
> standards. Neither
> Java or C# are "Open Standards" as commonly defined simply because
> one body
> may make changes to them. I personally don't think that anything can
> be a
> truly "open standard" - just more or less open. PHP is very open,
> Java is
> fairly open, C# is less open but still more open that CFML and so
> forth.
>
> In short I think that the terms themselves aren't clear and are used
> in
> cases like this more didactically than anything else.
>
> Jim Davis
>
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