All of that said, the legal issue is only an issue if it is allowed to become one. There is no question that there are some assemblies that could be legally entangled, that no different than C or C++ libraries that have been discovered to have infringing code in the past. They will be replaced with non-infringing code before the press release is cold, by the community.
Even with that threat, I maintain that Microsoft is too shrewd a marketing company to hand Justice and their very able competitors, Apple, Novell, and Red Hat a smoking gun like that. They have commited to the .NET / C# path, and with Rotor, they opened a floodgate that they cannot close without raising serious issues across the board.
When you look at the license around Rotor, you'll notice that it was to encourage non-Microsoft developed CLI / CLR implementations and to encrouage educational adoption of the technology and platform as a teaching technology. It is a prime example of embrace and extend. The only way that MS maintains it's clear lead in the managed code world is to innovate and release new technologies faster than the OSS community can. So far they have a 2 year lead, and there is no question that they are aware of Mono (and Portable.NET).
The long and short of it is that, in business, you have to gamble on occasion. If you choose to gamble the C or C++ is going to remain the foundation language of development, then you can keep doing what you are doing. You could also gamble that Sun is going to stay solvent and keep Java relevant. You could gamble that C# and the .NET platform are here for the next 10-15 years (something will replace it, something always does), and embrace Mono, after all, what's the worst case scenario, you have redeploy to Windows machines for a short transition period? Most Linux Mono machines are x86 hardware, so at worst you are faced with Windows licensing costs. Most of your hardware came with a Windows license anyways.
Microsoft is anything but dumb, they will be just as happy to leverage global domination through development tools and technology as they have ben to use extortion, bundling and strongarm tactics. Office did not get to it's dominance by being the worst product. They did innovate, and create a better overall product when they had viable competition. Only when they've killed off competition have they become stagnant.
Andy
On May 20, 2004, at 9:04 AM, Melinda wrote:
Thankx for the reply. I appreciate it.
On Thu, 2004-05-20 at 17:53, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Some information...
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4557
Miguel and Novell legal staff are currently conducting a formal patent review
of mono, and the team had already split up the components of mono into
separate ECMA-based and non-ECMA components (WinForms, ADO.NET, etc) to
clearly define what RedHat and others could make use of.
Importantly, Miguel also said that Ximian had a letter from Microsoft, Intel
and HP stating that they would offer *royalty-free* RAND licensing to the
ECMA-submitted components of .NET. [Aside: He said they were kicking around
catchy names like 'polio' or 'cholera' to distinguish the free and non-free
stacks] I told Miguel he should publicize the letter more because it was such
a relief to me, but he said it would be premature to promote this before the
patent review was complete in case other infringement was uncovered.
http://www.go-mono.com/faq.html#patents
Most importantly: "For Linux server and desktop development, we only need the
ECMA components, and things that we have developed (like Gtk#) or Apache
integration."
http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg06501.html
Read Andy Satori's very well though out response, also Miguel's second
response further down in the thread. I believe Andy hit the nail on the head
with regards to the possibility of MS imposing restrictions on Mono in the
future. MS are trying to better their image. They are now even releaseing old
source on sourceforge. They would not benefit from any future attack on Mono.
http://nwc.linuxpipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=20300445
Yet according to de Icaza, open source advocates have blown the royalty issue
out of proportion. "We already know that the ECMA components are
royalty-free," he stated. "To the best of my knowledge, I am not aware of any
libraries or other parts that would have to be licensed" under royalty terms
from Microsoft.
"I think this issue comes up more because people in the open source community
are scared of Microsoft and because they're ill-informed about the issue," de
Icaza said. "We've spent a lot of time dealing with [the patent question],
and we're confident that we understand it."
--------
I believe the Mono/Novell tem are working on an official legal standing for
Mono 1.0, so please wait until then before voicing growing concern for the
implications of development with the framework.
-----Original Message----- From: Simon Ask Ulsnes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 11:34 AM To: COOPER, Jonathan -Syntegra UK Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Mono-list] Is it Mono safe?
Tell me again:
Why doesn't Novell/Ximian contact Microsoft to get it on paper that Mono _is_
safe?
(and if Microsoft refuses, can we actually be sure it is safe?)
- Simon
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I think one of the greatest barriers to adoption of mono by influential
developers will always be the MS issue. Miguel has explained the legal
situation over and over, but there are some linux users who will argue
over the smallest detail wherever MS is concerned with a technology.
It is unfortunate that the community will negate the fantastic success
of the mono development guys through FUD and miscommunication.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Melinda Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 6:40 AM To: Mono List Subject: [Mono-list] Is it Mono safe?
Look over here: http://www.gnome.org/~seth/blog/mono and here: http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=7094
This is bad news.... :(
How do you convince somebody to programming in Mono if he already read
that news?
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