Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 29th May 2009 22:32 UTC, submitted by lemur2
If there is one technology in the Linux world that ruffles feathers whenever it's mentioned, it's Mono, the open source .Net clone. Since .Net comes out of Microsoft, and has some patents encircling it, it is said to be a legal nightmare. Supposedly, you can obtain a "royalty-free, reasonable and non-discriminatory" license from Microsoft regarding the patents surrounding Mono. iTWire decided to look at just how easy (or hard) it is to get such a license. Turns out it's kind of hard.
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Member since:
2006-12-07
Free software might be a minefield, too. For example. database drivers for MySQL, version 3 and higher, are under GPL. MySQL people decline to interpret the license, and also decline to come clear are they willing to go after people who write non-GPL applications that work with version of MySQL server that is downloaded for free. Instead, they recommend to buy MySQL and be safe.
I write software for living, and placing any part of my code under GPL is strictly not an option. I find difficult to explain customers why they need to buy something they already downloaded for free.
The final outcome is that I have never sold any application that works with MySQL database. For customers that have not chosen database engine yet, I always advise against MySQL, to avoid problems.
My engine of choice is PostgreSQL, but I also find MS SQL much more developer friendly than MySQL, because license situation is clear, customers know that they need to pay, and, second, there is a developer version for free.