"Does GNOME co-founder Miguel de Icaza's backflip over the Novell-Microsoft deal a few days ago mean that he has finally been convinced that he is on a one-way path to nowhere? Has he realised that his own project, Mono, is actually putting GNOME on a development track that can leave it open to patent claims one day? And has he realised that creating Moonlight, a clone of Microsoft's Silverlight, (with which the company hopes to trump Adobe's Flash) is not going to advance the cause of free software one iota?"
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One sided and flametastic?
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The other side is that dual lisencing and Tivoization are two completely and utterly different things, and anyone writing about open source software should know the difference. Hell, anyone who is even remotely connected to the opensource world should know the difference.
Tivoization is preventing the use of modified source code through an external check of some sort, in the case of Tivo, doing a md5 hash of the kernel, and not loading any non Tivo built derivitives.
Dual Licensing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_license) is an attempt to make an open source business model work in a sphere where being open source would normally cause problems. It is not contraversial, and has been done for years. Examples of dual licensed products are Qt (what KDE is built on), MySQL (the most popular open source database), and CUPS (the best printer framework out there for UNIX). The authors attitude towards this practice shows a complete lack of knowledge about how open source works.
Microsoft published the core of the .net framework as an ECMA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecma_International) standard, which is a reputable standards body. This is not taking into account that every action by MS since Mono came out has been favorable towards the project, but even if we ignore recent history, THEY CAN'T SUE EVEN IF THEY WANTED TO!
As anyone who is even remotely familiar with this discussion knows, parts of the framework are under ECMA and therefor safe to use, and other parts are not. The parts which are not are things like ADO.net (for data access), WinForms (the old windows GUI toolkit), ASP.net (their server side scripting environment), etc. These are all high level toolkits, that have equivilents on the mono stack. If you develop mono on linux, you will not use WinForms, you will use GTK#, which has no legal issues. If Microsoft sues, what we lose is compatibility with windows technologies. Binary compatiblity with windows is just the sugar in mono, and it would suck if it were gone, but it is not the end of the world.
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IANAL, but MS doesn't need to win a court case - it never did.
How many companies capitulated before SCO's demands? How many will capitulate the second MS fires the first lawsuit?
If Microsoft sues, what we lose is compatibility with windows technologies. Binary compatiblity with windows is just the sugar in mono, and it would suck if it were gone, but it is not the end of the world.
How about Silverlight? under which category does it fall?
Beyond that, do -you- trust MS enough to let MS-designed technology into your own house?
Sorry, MS cannot threaten to sue us all (Linux developers and users alike) on one hand, and ask for our cooperation on the other.
MS's promise (?) not sue users and/or OSS mono developers means, exactly that, (an empty) promise.
If MS is serious in it's intent to work with the community, they can start by changing the .NET and Silverlight license and drop the FUD.
- Gilboa
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P.S.
And if even if you believe that MS will never sue the Novel team - will this extend to RedHat? How about Fedora? SUSE? Debian?
.. Will this promise hold, if say, MS loses ~10% of its desktop/server market share to Linux? How about a mono/OSX - does this promise extend to them?
- Gilboa
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You could see Silverlight and Flash as two evils, and I would not really call Adobe an angel here. Getting Flash to work on Linux is hell and Adobe isn't exactly putting an effort into it. Last time I checked they didn't help the gnash-team either. MS is helping the Moonlight team. Yup, you do get some MS-tech, and if I'm not mistaken some closed code(The media formats), but other than that it's open source. You're probably never going to see a open source. That's better than Flash, isn't it? And besides: Silverlight does offer some interesting tech. It's not all about politics.
(Actually, the Flash plugin even on Windows as pretty much gone to hell after Adobe took over Macromedia. It's transformed into this one single giant memory leak.)
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Silverlight is a different story. MS would have a hard time in a patent infrigement suite due to how much they have helped out with moonlight, but it is MS technology and not under ECMA.
On the other hand though, Flash is an adobe product, and nothing is keeping adobe from dumping linux support any time they feel like it. Not only that, but there probably will never be any flash tools for linux developers, there will be for moonlight. I am not trying to say there is no risk with it, but there are definatley mitigating factors.
Sorry, MS cannot threaten to sue us all (Linux developers and users alike) on one hand, and ask for our cooperation on the other.
You are right, and they aren't.
If MS is serious in it's intent to work with the community, they can start by changing the .NET and Silverlight license and drop the FUD.
You should drop the FUD. You can't start off by saying its not a matter of sueing, then procede to make veiled references to law suites through the whole post.
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The author didn't say that dual licensing and Tivoization are the same, or that dual licensing has no value. He said that Novell prevents contributing authors from protecting their work as they intend, if they intend to use GPL. (They weren't as clever as Tivo, but they achieved a similar end.)
If he accurately represented the licensing clause, Novell can relicense contributions under any terms they want. That surely circumvents the intent of the GPL.
And shouting that Microsoft can't sue even if they wanted to will not impose a limitation on what Microsoft will do. When you run to keep up with Microsoft for the purpose of keeping up with Microsoft, there could easily be something you're doing that isn't protected by the ECMA spec. I know that's subjective, but statements about the future always are.
BTW. Twice you wrote anyone who is even remotely familiar/connected. That could be taken as an attack my or the author's knowledge instead of addressing the issue. That's doesn't help advance your argument.
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The GPL has four freedoms:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
the FSF is saying with Tivoization, you are blocking freedom 4 in a roundabout way. There has been alot of discussion and contraversy over this statement, especially on how to deal with it.
I repeat myself, dual licensing is widely considered to be perfectly acceptable. There is no freedom it is in conflict with.
The author did not say they were the same thing, but he did say they were similar. They are not. If you believe that, you need to attack almost any commercial company who is friendly towards linux to be consistant.
There are alot of things done in .net not part of ECMA. That is fine, if MS ever pulls the plug on them, they are gone. That doesn't take away what IS under ECMA. Neither will MS not continueing to publish specifications. If they stopped tomorrow, mono would still have C# 3.0, and be able to take it in their own direction.
It is an attack on the authors knowledge. When you publish anywhere, you have a responsability to be at least somewhat familiar with what you are talking about. The author demonstrates that he is not.
It was not meant to be an attack on you, more of an education. There are alot of things being said about this issue that are plain not true, and if you havn't actually seriously looked at it, it is easy to be swept up in that.
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Thom,
Sam Varguese is essentially a tabloid author. He always has, and has never shown any sign of intellect beyond what would be expected by the rage-o-sphere.
In that article he selectively quotes my postings to usenet ignoring the most extensive and more nuanced response. Sam is a partisan hack, loves KDE, hates Gnome and hates Mono.
Jihadists like Sam contribute very little to the advancement of free software and only poison the discourse.
Miguel.
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I find the article very destructive.
Miguel de Icaza and his team have built an amazing free (as in freedom) .NET implementation, and beyond that: They are creating a new open ecosystem around .NET (e.g. Gtk#, MonoDevelop and all their stuff).
Mono is not about politics, it is about technology.
How can I criticize a Rembrandt's picture if I cannot even draw simple lines? How can I criticize the picture with those so very biased and full-of-hate comments?
Edited 2008-03-12 01:13 UTC
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Miguel de Icaza and his team have built an amazing free (as in freedom) .NET implementation, and beyond that: They are creating a new open ecosystem around .NET (e.g. Gtk#, MonoDevelop and all their stuff).
Mono is not about politics, it is about technology.
But one can't avoid the inevitable face off when it comes to Microsoft and the patents which exist on the technologies in Mono. I therefore find it funny every-time people like me raise perfectly valid questions we have the usual 'froth froth' response by those in the cheap-seats.
Yes, Mono is a great piece of technology, yes, .NET is a great piece of design and engineering, but that is not the question being asked. The question is whether Microsoft is going to threaten Mono in the future; until we have an unequivocal yes or no, as with the case of Sun and Java, in respects to open-source, how can one honestly dedicate time and resources to something with an uncertain legal future.
I find it funny when people like me raise these questions, the only response I've received so far on this site is 'froth froth, you hate Microsoft, froth froth' - yeap, that is the level of maturity I see on this site when it comes to discussing the legal implications of creating a .NET compatible framework.
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It is because there is next to no chance of it happening.
MS is partnering with Novell with a bunch of stuff atm, so as things stand now there isn't much chance of them sueing. And the .net team has been very pro mono since the beginning, and they actually do stuff to help out (like giving mono their test cases) It isn't right to bank on that, but if they do sue, who cares? Noone is advocating winforms development on linux, winforms is there for compatibility with windows apps. XSP on linux is nice, but it is mostly there to be able to run ASP.net apps without being tied to windows server and IIS. The CLR, C#, GTK#, and Cocoa# are all open standards, and even if MS ends up not playing nice with ECMA, the mono guys can just continue with what they have, and take it in a different direction.
I'm sure you've heard it before, but that is basically it. Most people take something being an open standard published by a reputable standards board to be a uniquivical answer to the question. Not only that, but it has been years now, and instead of hearing rumblings of dissent coming from redmond, we are seeing more and more cooperation, and framework bits being opensourced. If I were to be all like, "ZOMG, TEH SKY IS FALLING!!" about kde going with webkit, or people distributing CUPS because the technologies are now coming out of Apple, you would probably label me as anti-apple, and rightly so. dont get me wrong, I don't think you are lying when you are saying you are concerned about this, but I do think the reason you are is because of FUD that is being spread about it by people who do lie.
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"Microsoft probably won't sue" is hardly a compelling reason to start any project, especially when a number of other outstanding solutions already exist in the FOSS space and could use the extra manpower. If the Mono team was really out to help folks and promote good technology, they'd bring the strengths of the CLR to the open source community.
Parrot needs the kind of design, coding, and testing that Novell and the Mono team could bring to the table.
Vala could use serious manpower in writing interfaces and optimizing the metacompiler.
The GTK team would love help restructuring their libraries and squashing performance bugs.
Helping in any one of these areas would have far-reaching, cross-platform benefits for massive segments of OSS. Instead, the Mono folks chose to write a VM from scratch and play perpetual catch-up to Microsoft ever-changing language extensions (just ask any other vendor how easy and fun it is to ride the Microsoft protocol bronco without getting bucked off). And for what? Well, let's run down a list of Mono's "strengths":
Mono allows unencumbered, cross-platform interoperability... so long as "interoperability" is defined in such a way as to exclude GUIs, database access, and web development.
Well OK, so it's not so great at real, usable interoperability, but hey, if you target Mono, your code will at least run unmodified on Windows... right? As it turns out, it's taken significant porting effort to get Banshee and Beagle to run on Windows (and even then, they're separate forks from the Linux codebase).
The syntax, though, is the fallback argument. C# is beautiful, concise, fun to program in. It's also available for Vala (without the accompanying memory bloat and speed limitations of Mono) and even Parrot.
Yes, there's a lot of people out there whinging about the Novell-Microsoft deal. Sure, there are loads of conspiracy theories and plenty of high-pitched, uninformed FUD-slinging. But once you actually sit down and examine the facts, it's even more clear that Mono is the software equivalent of the Concorde: a technologically sexy novelty, but a total failure for its stated goals.
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To be fair, Mono predates Parrot by about a year, and predates Vala by about five years. So saying they should have helped on these projects before starting their own "from scratch" is kinda silly.
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Novell wanted java without the cruft that they could control. None of the environments you mentioned has the "everything and the kitchen sink" mentality that .net and java have. The only reason they play "catch up", is for binary compatiblity with windows apps. That is a huge thing, but from a purely technical point of view they could stop and take it in another direction any time they wanted.
Mono encourages users to their own stack. It isn't like they just stop at winforms and ado. There is Gtk#, Cocoa#, and Qt# to choose from.
I don't know how much experience you have with cross platform apps, I was a java guy for almost 5 years and let me tell you, "write once, run anywhere" only applies for trivial apps. And java is arguably as cross platform as it gets.
Knowing nothing about the specific issues in this case, my guess is that GStreamer on windows wasn't really in state for banshee to be usable, and there had to be alot of api mapping to make things work. Gtk on windows is about the opposit of impressive.
Regardless, you do have a point, if you are expecting zero effort porting on a non trivial app, you are in for a big suprise.
The syntax, though, is the fallback argument. C# is beautiful, concise, fun to program in. It's also available for Vala (without the accompanying memory bloat and speed limitations of Mono) and even Parrot.
Does vala or parrot have frameworks that even come close to the .net API? That is one of the big positives, you are using the same framework to write webapps as you use to write desktop apps, as you use to write mobile apps and everything in between.
Its stated goals is to provide a modern, high quality application framework for linux. I would say they succeded; apart from a few areas, their performance is on par with java, and they have managed to stay about a year and a half behind microsoft so far when it comes to functionality.
Personally, I don't think it is the savior of the free software world the way that Novell is trying to plug it, but it has alot of very compelling aspects to it, especially when compared to other options in the same space. As a .net guy on windows, it is the obvious choice for me whenever I want to bang out a quick app or a small tool on linux (making linux development very accessable to windows developers is not a small thing either)
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None of the solutions that you list are of particular interest to us, as they fail a number of tests: (a) are they multi-language platforms; (b) do they have an extensive ISV platform; (c) readily available documentation and tutorials and an ecosystem around them.
All fascinating projects, and we wish them good luck, but that is not what we want to achieve.
If you feel so passionate about them, you should join those efforts.
In some areas we play catch-up, but every time we do, more programmers can port their software to Linux. You probably will not hear about them on OSNews.com, they are too busy getting real work done, but we are very proud of every developer that we have moved over from Windows.
Not all software will port, and not all of it is a 5 minute job, but it is possible, and in particular for vertical applications this is fantastic.
Mono allows unencumbered, cross-platform interoperability... so long as "interoperability" is defined in such a way as to exclude GUIs, database access, and web development.
Incorrect; We do support GUI portability using Windows.Forms, granted, people need to do some work on this area if they use P/Invoke, but its a small price to pay to get your app on Linux or MacOS.
Database access, moves transparently, you obviously have never tried it out, and the same goes for web applications (honestly, the easiest of the applications to port).
Porting to a new *database* (ie, MS SQL to Postgress) typically involves more work that porting the code with Mono. If you do not mind keeping the SQL server around (and most people are not willing to migrate this piece) porting of web apps is trivial.
The rest of your comment is clearly based on opinions based on a vague knowledge of Mono, factoids, not facts.
The syntax, though, is the fallback argument. C# is beautiful, concise, fun to program in. It's also available for Vala (without the accompanying memory bloat and speed limitations of Mono) and even Parrot.
More nonsense. Mono is not about C#, its about the CLI. But even if the "syntax" was available C# has plenty of features not available in either Parrot or Vala. Facts, not speculation.
miguel
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Should I point the battle between RAMBUS and JEDEC members? [1]
Readers digest: RAMBUS sat at the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) sessions surrounding SDRAM and DDR standards, while in-fact, they were attempting to patent key technologies that were discussed by JEDEC members that were considered common knowledge.
Shortly after RAMBUS retired from JEDEC and started suing JEDEC members for "patent infringement".
Somehow I won't be shocked if MS pulls a "RAMBUS" on mono/silverlight users/developers.
- Gilboa
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambus
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For a platform build on FOSS, it is.
P.S. Blanket discounting of opposing opinions is childish and intellectually disingenuous.
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Reread my comment. You obviously care about the TECHNOLOGY LICENSING ISSUE, not the politics. Politics is about appearances ... you know, the meaningless bullshit attendant to human existence ... And, like I said, only the zealots care about the politics. The LICENSING, on the other hand, is a legitimate issue.
I didn't. You simply didn't understand the nuance of my comment.
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I find it funny when people like me raise these questions, the only response I've received so far on this site is 'froth froth, you hate Microsoft, froth froth' - yeap, that is the level of maturity I see on this site when it comes to discussing the legal implications of creating a .NET compatible framework.
That sounds like a strawman, because it has never been a problem of portraying someone as being a zealot for raising valid questions.
The issue has always been that people raise the same issues that have been beaten to death for years. Extensive blog postings and answers have been posted to countless forums and my own blog that go into the details.
I pointed this out on that thread on Usenet, the piece that Sam selectively chose to ignore in the same section of my reply (it would have ruined his argument had he done so).
Miguel.
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Since everybody seems so worried about patents, can you point out exactly which 'technologies' present in Mono can be subject to those patents? For example there is not a single chance in hell Microsoft can use part of their patents portfolio against Mono VM. The Mono VM is pretty much run-of-the-mill stuff, there's lots and lots of prior art on pretty much every aspect of the VM, no patent on those technologies would stand for more than 5 minutes in a court.
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it's ALL about politics... when you lie with dogs, you get the fleas.
There's no point in an open source C# implementation. It's nice to think you can play in Microsoft's world, but nobody can. period. It's played out countless times that they eat their partners. While Microsoft may have supported Mono, they basically accused all of the other linux technology Novell used to support it as "infringing" what great business partners!!!
The technology of C# was just a copy of Java anyway. Again, basically stolen from their attempt to implement Java under contract with SUN when Microsoft bailed on them. The whole point is that Mono will ALWAYS be a closed box.. always behind... This guy was determined hell or high water to drag Gnome right into the middle of this mess.
There were a lot of other projects that could have used the help, Gnome should have used python or such that was already established, and runs just fine on windows. Miguel is still thinking old school, like Charlie Brown, that Lucy (Microsoft) will let his company kick the football this time.... really! It is politics, Microsoft doesn't play fair, it's time to build our OWN way of doing things and somebody hugely important, with the resources to do it, is trying to be buddy with the one company with a proven record of not playing fair... what a waste of years and millions of dollars, not to mention the diminishment of a great linux distro (SuSe) into an also-ran.
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Have you all wondered if Microsoft/Novell deal is a propaganda from Microsoft to stall MONO's future?
Are companies going to invest in MONO? NO.
Are developers willing to invest in MONO for their job's sake? NO.
Why? Because they don't know what the future holds.
And if you do invest in it - is there a possibility a lawsuit would force you to switch to an alternative solution by our good friends at Microsft. YES
Edited 2008-03-12 01:25 UTC
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Companies are have already invested in mono. Developers are getting paid to work full time on mono. Mono is under an ECMA standard, so the core technology is safe (what is up for debate is extra stuff like winforms or the asp.net port) Fairly large companies (Second Life for example, but there are others) are already using mono as a robust scripting engine. There isn't really any chance they would be sued, as the core technology which they use is under ECMA.
Your entire post is almost a poster child of the massive amounts of FUD that are being spread around this project. There are legitimate concerns around mono, but you didn't even touch on any of them.
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"There isn't really any chance they would be sued, as the core technology which they use is under ECMA."
I apologize. Instead of stating the two words "Microsoft" and "lawsuit" I should have clearly used "Microsoft" and "f*cking over a project without the court system".
"There are legitimate concerns around mono, but you didn't even touch on any of them."
You've proved my point WHY Fortune 500 companies are not investing in MONO.
MONO has one advantage. MIGRATION. Company wants to port their Windows .NET infrastructure to Linux? Use MONO as the bridge and gradually port. Company wants to move from Linux to MS .NET? Use MONO.
As you notice, it's a whole lot easier to port from Windows .NET to Linux using MONO. HENCE A THREAT TO MICROSOFT. Do I need to remind you Microsoft makes $$$ on middle tier infrastructure?
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Wow, I never in a million years thought I'd be posting in defense of mono, but the cliche'd rhetoric is getting over the top.
mono and the Windows .net compatability components are two separate things. C# is an ECMA standard, and MS has provided a will-not-sue provision. Their developers have even worked with, though not contributed alongside, the mono developers. Microsoft's ability to sue for patent infringement has been effectively waived. Of course there's nothing to stop them from trying, but their ability to actually win a legal challenge, alongside the fallout they could receive for trying, makes the probability virtually nil. The fact that Fedora accepted mono should also be an endorsement of that position, because despite the arms-length separation of Red Hat, there's no way they would have permitted it if legal felt there was a liability. Blogosphere pundits may have their own opinions, but I suspect that Red Hat's lawyers have opinions that are somewhat more qualified.
Now, the Windows components are a separate issue. But you can develop quite comfortably with mono and GTK#, and Gnome really needed a comprehensive application framework, which nobody had stepped up to deliver. Even KDE is going to be providing C# bindings. It's about providing options to developers.
I find mono to be ridiculously bloated and resource intensive from my own experience with mono-apps, but I will also acknowledge that the developers have been going to great pains to try and improve it, with respectable results.
I don't need mono, I don't particularly want mono, but I will defend mono if the best argument against it amounts to "ick, Microsoft". Argue on technical merits, argue on design merits, argue on the simple fact that beagle fries CPUs, but let's at least keep the arguments rational. Please, I don't want to ever have to defend mono again.
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Yes, the article is one-sided and biased... When submitting this news, I was hoping that the following, hopefully rational and civilized discussion in the comments section would bring clarity to the problematic issues (instead of people just calling names and blaming each other...).
Let's concentrate on real factual issues instead of personal attacks etc. Despite ECMA nobody can deny that many people like companies still seem to be feeling at least somewhat insecure about using Mono and related technologies like Moonlight from a legal point of view. Why is that, and what could be done about that?
I quote the Wikipedia Moonlight page here as it summarizes some of the problems clearly:
Some commentators have argued that this may be an attempt by Microsoft to both gain support from those in the open source community[16], and attract them to a proprietary Microsoft technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_%28runtime%29
Any comments on that?
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Other than a referral to Mono's patents FAQ, I doubt whether you will get a response.
What's happening here is that Microsoft have always liked to used technical restrictions to protect their technology from competition. It doesn't make them better or worse than any other company, but they can do this because they control Windows. However, with the advent of things like Samba, and Wine to a lesser extent, and with the advent of people virtualising Windows on other platforms, they quickly realised this wasn't enough. When Microsoft releases anything publicly it is now under a plethora of academic-only licenses and restrictive terms and conditions.
The trouble with Silverlight is that it doesn't have a critical mass of usage, so Microsoft has to try and boost its it. They can do this through creating a Mac port, and allowing projects like Moonlight to exist. However, the dominant implementation will still be Microsoft's Silverlight, so fully expect to see the Mac port stagnate and Moonlight to have real difficulty implementing various features in successive versions - and for Novell's access to the test suites to disappear.
Silverlight is mainly used for video right now (if at all), so if you want to use it then you will need to compile Moonlight with ffmpeg yourself. Amusingly, this has patent issues according to Miguel in his post so Novell won't do this, so they are going to do some licensing of patents to allow this to happen at an unspecified date. This means that if you're using an implementation or distribution that isn't Novell's, you're out of luck.
Edited 2008-03-12 11:36 UTC
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Silverlight is mainly used for video right now (if at all), so if you want to use it then you will need to compile Moonlight with ffmpeg yourself. Amusingly, this has patent issues according to Miguel in his post so Novell won't do this, so they are going to do some licensing of patents to allow this to happen at an unspecified date. This means that if you're using an implementation or distribution that isn't Novell's, you're out of luck.
The issue is very simple, unless we are able to transfer the same patent rights that we have to third parties when we redistribute ffmpeg code, we are not allowed to distribute ffmpeg.
As we are going to become licensor (for other reasons beyond Moonlight) to MPEGLA's VC-1 we can not distribute ffmpeg ourselves.
This should not prevent anyone from distributing it themselves, and those that do not have valid VC-1 patents in their countries to do so.
Miguel.
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If we are to worry so much about possible patents in Mono that we ignore this very good software development platform, we have lots of other things to remove. To name a couple:
* We need to remove FAT32 support. Microsoft HAS been granted patents covering this file system. With it goes support for camera memory cards and using USB keys interchangeably between Linux and Windows.
* We need to remove Samba/CIFS. Microsoft has patents here which they may sue about in the future.
The only reason people aren't screaming as loudly about these as Mono, is that these two projects are utterly essential and it would really ruin the experience if they are taken away.
The sad fact is that many Linux projects infringe on some patents, but the good news is that many of these patents will never be sued over.
Why?
a) Because the patent holder knows the patents wouldn't hold up in court, and
b) Because the patent holders are bound to infringe on patents held by the likes of IBM and Red Hat.
It is a shame Novell signed a patent covenant that sort of legitimised Microsoft's over the top claims, but this does not mean that Mono is useless.
The parts of Mono that is needed to create a superb GNOME development platform are standardised through ECMA (the core) or has no relation with Microsoft (ie. gtk#) whatsoever.
The chances of running into any trouble by using the c#, the mono core and gtk# or Qt# to create GNOME/KDE applications is so small it isn't a risk worth worrying about.
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I still can't believe that people still believe these myths that come out of the Mono community on this topic:
This is completely false. The situation is that when Microsoft submitted the CLR, CLS and C# specs to the ECMA, and they were accepted, they had to enter into an agreement that any patents they had on them would be overlooked on the basis of reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (RAND). You can verify these here:
http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/codeofconduct.htm
However, what ECMA does not do is stop Microsoft from having patents on the technology, now and in the future, and it does not stop Microsoft from using them at such a time as it sees fit. The agreement is not legally binding, and the ECMA is powerless to do anything. The only thing that will probably happen, and can happen, is that should Microsoft decide to break the RAND terms then the ECMA will take them down as their own standards and cancel them. Everyone who used them is left to face the consequences.
This is why there was some hoo-ha a while ago about Miguel and the Mono people allegedly having a letter from Microsoft, Intel and HP about these RAND terms being guaranteed indefinitely. Needless to say, no letter ever materialised.
I have never seen anyone get this. Anywhere.
The second myth that does the rounds is that Mono is at much the same risk from patents as anyone else. The reasonably clever thing that Microsoft have done with their .Net patents is that they have stated that the scope of the patent is anyone who implements a CLR according to the ECMA specifications. I'll have to dig out an example of this, but the USPTO links are impossible to post because of their length. Microsoft like to box in and protect what they see as their IP - regardless of whether it has been submitted to a standards body or not. Microsoft are not into general patents as others are, and prefer technical restrictions. You see this with OOXML as well and what you need to implement it. I'm really not surprised that Miguel doesn't answer questions well on the subject of patents, Microsoft and the usefulness of cloning their technology.
There are other issues related to cloning Microsoft technology, but those are related to technology and the practicality and usefulness of it. For Mono, and Moonlight, to be really useful Microsoft's implementations would essentially have to be put in very dominant positions. Ironically, Mono and Moonlight would have helped .Net and Silverlight to get there. As a result of that dominant position, there is no guarantee that successive versions of .Net and Silverlight will remain compatible with Moonlight and Mono - excessive use of DRM in Windows Media etc. In that sense, yes, you have to ask if you can trust Microsoft and it is not a subject for Cosmo or Teen magazine.
Anyone who doesn't get that isn't exactly the sharpest tool in the box, and yes, the article is slightly inflammatory, but it does give an insight into how Miguel and the Mono people would like to trivialise this. Why they would want to do that, one can only guess. Maybe they just don't understand it.
Edited 2008-03-12 10:22 UTC
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You can't keep hiding behind the FAQ Miguel. Nowhere on the FAQ does it answer what was written. It merely perpetuates the myth that the ECMA implemented stuff is safe. It isn't the more you read.
I'm sorry, I have to take a double-take there. Did you read what was written? Microsoft only licenses the ECMA core stuff because the ECMA requires them to if they want this to continue being a set of ECMA standards.
Problems:
1. Microsoft does not have to license the core material under RAND terms forever. They can change this whenever they like. Most likely is that Microsoft will stop contributing to the ECMA core stuff, but they can cause a lot more damage and scaremongering if they feel like it.
2. The ECMA is powerless to stop Microsoft having patented material within their standards, or acquiring them later.
3. The ECMA is powerless to stop Microsoft revoking the RAND terms, other than cancelling the standards altogether.
4. The ECMA has no legal power at all to hold Microsoft to these RAND terms.
They're legitimate concerns which I think others have raised, but I haven't seen them follow through on.
Why do you think Microsoft licenses Rotor and various other things under strictly academic style licenses? They aren't going to let this go, and that's what they see anything that implements the ECMA core as - an academic project that helps them. Nothing more. In short, you just built your town on a piece of land with an awful lot of mine workings underneath. It might go tomorrow, next week or next year - but it will go.
Edited 2008-03-13 01:52 UTC