----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <r...@linuxmafia.com> ----- From: Rick Moen <r...@linuxmafia.com> Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 08:44:08 -0700 To: linux-eliti...@zgp.org Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] [Opensim-dev] Mono considered harmful User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11+cvs20060403
Quoting Eugen Leitl (eu...@leitl.org): > IANAL, does below explanation by Adam hold water? You don't have to be a lawyer to know that it's rubbish on two separate grounds. Yes, C# is an ECMA standard. However: (1) It doesn't follow that ECMA International has any power to "forbid" patent holders from suing anyone over anything, let alone patent infringement. I mean, think about it: Does Adam think ECMA International is Microsoft Corporation's daddy? That it owns 51% of the issued and outstanding common stock? At worst, it might be possible for ECMA International to be very deeply disappointed in Microsoft's behaviour at some future point, decertify particular things, and otherwise carry out mild actions that _are_ within its power. More important: (2) In any event, ECMA International does not even _profess_ to disapprove of suing patent infringers. It merely has a "Code of Conduct in Patent Matters" (http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/codeofconduct.htm), setting ECMA policy that the group will approve standards only if it has written assurances from applicant that applicable patents will be licensed on a "reasonable, non-discriminatory basis". (That term of art is typically referred to as RAND terms.) Has Adam Frisby completely missed the last decade of standards warfare? The proprietary camp has repeatedly attempted to get the World Wide Web Consortium to start accepting "RAND" patent licensing, instead of requiring that applicants certify that covering patents will be _royalty-free_. This arm-twisting failed, because of diligent focussing of attention from open source people. W3C has stuck to its guns and insistend on royalty-free patent licensing. To spell it out: "Reasonable" means obligatory patent royalty payments. Which means no open source implementations of those standards. And that is one reason why ECMA standards can be (and often are) issued on terms hostile to open source, whereas W3C standards are reliable and open-source-friendly. Sheesh. -- Cheers, HÃggledy-pìggledy / XML programmers Rick Moen Try to escape those / I-eighteen-N woes; r...@linuxmafia.com Incontrovertibly / What we need more of is McQ! (4x80) Unicode weenies and / François Yergeaus. _______________________________________________ linux-elitists mailing list linux-eliti...@zgp.org http://allium.zgp.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linux-elitists ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE _______________________________________________ Opensim-dev mailing list Opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
