Hi, On Jul 11, 11:07 pm, Sebin Jacob <sebinaja...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear Anoop, > > Was following this controversy for a while. Here is the counter argument: > > http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/
I am not a Mono/.NET developer, but even then, the article is not very convincing. I agree that it is more productive to program with Mono. But the author totally hides the real problem - that of patent / trade secret violation. The problem really is that like most M$ "open" standards (eg: ooxml), this standard is also very intentionally vague about what is open and what is proprietary. As a developer, you may think that you are implementing an open spec, while you may be unintentionally implementing a patent encumbered spec. This is a real problem - and the Mono project did face difficulties like this. The author also says that absence of 'patent protection' is not the same as 'patent violation'. He even cites Freetype as an example. But that argument is really lame. He ignores examples to the contrary. Remember that Unisys went after GIF (graphic interchange format) users simply because it used their patented Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression algorithm. Unisys actually had nothing else to do with GIF. Programming with that much risk is simply asking for trouble. I doubt that many programmers will wait for M$ to change their mind and catch hold of their neck. .NET is great when you are developing a software governed by a mesh of contracts. But what about free software? Shouldn't it be really 'free'? > തോട്ടില് വെള്ളമുണ്ടെന്നു് പറഞ്ഞു് കരയ്ക്കുകൂടി നടക്കുമ്പോള് > മുണ്ടുപൊക്കിപ്പിടിക്കേണ്ട കാര്യമുണ്ടോ? തോടേതാ കരയേതാന്ന് അറിയാന് പറ്റില്ലെങ്കില്, പിന്നെ വേറെന്താ ചെയ്യുക? Regards, Gokul Das --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ "Freedom is the only law". "Freedom Unplugged" http://www.ilug-tvm.org You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ilug-tvm" group. To post to this group, send email to ilug-tvm@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ilug-tvm-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For details visit the website: www.ilug-tvm.org or the google group page: http://groups.google.com/group/ilug-tvm?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
