We were well aware that Novell had put itself on the market, coyly winking at passers-by, displaying its… Assets. VMware was a contender, but things have played out entirely different: Novell has been bought by Attachmate Corp., with a Microsoft-led consortium buying unspecified intellectual property from Novell.
Attachmate Corp. is owned by an investment firm led by three private equity firms (you lost me), and “enables IT organizations to extend mission critical services and assures they are managed, secure and compliant”. Whatever the heck that means. Anywho, they’re buying Novell for 2.2 billion USD. The Attachmate Corporation plans to run Novell as two business units – Novell-proper and SUSE.
At the same time, CPTN Holdings LLC, a consortium of technology companies led by Microsoft, bought a load of intellectual property from Novell for 450 million USD. All involved are mum on exactly what intellectual property it has bought, but Jefferies & Co. analyst Katherine Egbert believes it might be IP Novell acquired by buying WordPerfect.
“After a thorough review of a broad range of alternatives to enhance stockholder value, our Board of Directors concluded that the best available alternative was the combination of a merger with Attachmate Corporation and a sale of certain intellectual property assets to the consortium,” said Ron Hovsepian, president and CEO of Novell, in a press release, “We are pleased that these transactions appropriately recognize the value of Novell’s relationships, technology and solutions, while providing our stockholders with an attractive cash premium for their investment.”
With Microsoft having a hand in this deal, let’s hope this won’t end up causing another boatload of patent lawsuits. After all, Microsoft joined the patent trolling game recently, and who knows, it might be addictive.
Kidding? Maybe, but it seems true
Edited 2010-11-22 20:02 UTC
Well, that would be some news
No, its not coming this way, but we will see … For example: What will happen to mono?
Okay, its Mono, what means, it is nothing
But Novell was involved in quite some important linux projects.
Mono means one more then nothing
Regarding Mono, according to a tweet from its creator Miguel de Icaza: “After the Novell acquisition, Mono continues as-is, but our paychecks will come from Attachmate instead of Novell.”
And also “MSFT bought the patents, the products like mono go to Attachmate.”
His paycheck comes from MSFT. But he can’t admit that publicly.
The expiry of patents on the 1969 Unix could’nt be so far off?
If i’m correct industrial patents hold for 50years.
That means some of those code would be public domain in 2019?
Patents have 20 years. Design patents (which are an _entirely_ different beast) vary, in the US they’re 14 years.
What matters more is copyright on the original Unix code (some of which still lingers in most Unix systems).
Given that the BSDs freed the BSD line in the early 90s, and Sun managed to get much of the SVr4 stuff under weak copyleft via OpenSolaris, most issues around Unix copyrights should be clear now (except when relicensing incompatibly)
I don’t know why people are getting excited about this. UnixWare has no bearing on Linux because it was established that there was no Unix code whatsoever in Linux. However, it then transpired that SCO didn’t even have the rights to allege what they were claiming and that’s the direction things went in.
Novell has issued a clarifying statement confirming that the Unix copyrights will remain with them.
http://www.novell.com/company/ir/message.html
Edited 2010-11-24 21:18 UTC
I am an Attachmate employee and a regular OSnews reader, and I probably can’t say much here but I do want to say that I am very excited about this deal. Very excited. 🙂
I wouldn’t get excited unfortunately. Novell is going to be an absolutely horrendous company to amalgamate and do anything with and it will probably cost AttachMate more than the 2.2 billion they laid out to do that. It could put them under actually.
I sincerely hope those in charge have a clear vision for Novell they can sum up in one sentence and have the technology nous to not get the wool pulled over their eyes. Given that they intend to try and operate Novell and Suse as two separate units then I’d say they don’t have a vision for anything.
Given that AttachMate now appear to be a VC firm effectively, or backed by VC firms and investors who are bankrolling this, I can’t see it ending well. They did afterall lay off most AttachMate development staff while still collecting on the maintenance contracts because they’ve already been saddled with debt.
EDIT: In addition, now that Novell’s ‘IP’ has been sold to Microsoft the chances of AttachMate being able to compete in any way with Microsoft or do anything with Novell is virtually zero.
Edited 2010-11-23 14:21 UTC
Yeah, Microsoft will simply destroy all Novell products if Attacmate tries to compete. I see two possible outcomes:
1) Attachmate gets drawn into Novell 2.0 game since they have no choice. Since Microsoft practicaly owns ground they walk on, they will do same as Novell: growl at microsoft’s feet. (sad parts is that Novell didn’t have to do that; they sought that stupid deal). Attachmate will probably end up helping Microsoft trap people into .NET trap only to buy “Microsoft approved” sticker for their products. That will in turn result in continuation of boycott of SUSE by Free Software community and, due to lack of quality caused by lack of community, businesses too. So SUSE is in for quick path to nowhere, while other Novell “assets” are nowhere already. When Microsoft decides that it had enough of Mono, they will simply cancel a patent peace and force it underground like RMS predicted, and then send a invoice to all users together with proposition of migration path to Vista 8.
2) Attachmate sees the writing on the wall (basically all I described above) and decides to do quick asset striping. First jack up the prices of all propriatary assets who still have some user-base. Sells off SUSE to highest bidder (while it still worth something). Make Mono proprietary and very expensive and start milking money from those few overzealous users that might still use it. Then when last users have left it, kill it off or sell it to highest bidder. Selling SUSE and killing mono might piss off Micorsoft (they don’t want real competitor to own SUSE, and they want to use their carefully set up Mono trap for GNU/Linux users, not see it killed prematurely by somebody else) so they might sue Attachmate for using Mono patents in the first place… or something. Or they might sue buyers of other assets making sales and asset striping harder for Attacmate.
Interesting times ahead, but anyway you put it, Attachmate is boned. They bought the undead which is draging them in the grave. SUSE is already a has-been distro, even those who used it till now will move to Red Hat since nobody likes uncertainty. Other asets are all declining and Mono is 100% dependant on Microsoft; there is simply no money to be made on that other that Microsoft shill checks. Will all atachmate employees shill for Microsoft? I hope they have some more pride than Novellers.
Today will be one of the darkest days in computer history of Microsoft ended up with the patents for UNIX. I hope Attachmate owns those and will sell to just about anyone else other than MS, if they ever sell them.
What’s Unix got to do with anything?
Not sure which patents you think they have, but patents filed before 1995(?) are only good for 17 years. After that date they last 20 years. What SCO and Novell fought over was copyrights. Those last much longer. Of course this is all moot as Novell distributes Linux under the GPL. They couldn’t argue someone stole the code from them as they argued in court that they owned it and freely gave it away. So really the only problem would be any existing projects. But its hard to say what will happen at this point.
I think I’m confusing copyright with patents.
I’m never quite sure whether software code fall under copyright or patents.
The actual code is under copyright.
The ideas behind the code are under patents.
Patents area far more dangerous, you can always rewrite code, but hacking around very general concepts is much much harder.
Not quite right … patents are not awarded for ideas, they are awarded for inventions.
What is the difference you might ask?
Patent titles almost always begin with “A method for <doing something>”. What is patented is the particular method, not the idea itself of “<doing something>”. You would be able to get a patent for a new type of nail gun (specifically, on the new method that your new nail gun design used to propel nails), but not for the idea of a nail gun itself, or nails, or carpentry for that matter.
As for Novel patents and free software … Novel is a contributing member to the OIN and the Patent Commons.
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/
http://www.patentcommons.org/
If a new owner tried to withdraw Novel patents, say from the Patent Commons, and then tried to sue a free software project over them, then the doctrine of promissory estoppel would surely apply.
but do you think some WordPerfect IP is worth 2 billion to Microsoft?
there must be more to it
i have the gut feeling they are planning on going after Android/Linux
Well, there is a lawsuit against Microsoft in progress at this moment over Wordperfect IP. This purchase may well kill that lawsuit.
However, having said that, your speculation could indeed turn out to be entirely correct.
You didn’t read the thing correctly. 2 billion is the price paid by Attachmate, not MSFT (or more precisely the consortium they are part of).
The MS consortium is paying $450M for the IP, and it won’t incude WordPerfect since Corel bought them from Novell long ago.
Novell holds patents that have always been a concern for MS, related to networking and directory-based technologies, among others. Novell was doing workgroup computing long before MS did. Those patents are very likely the reason that Microsoft’s deal with Novell was a cross-licensing deal in Novell’s favor, as opposed to the other companies like Xandros that simply wound up having to pay a license fee to MS.
MS Xenix – woohoo!
should have gone with WINix
Xenix would be correct as that was a Unix* OS Microsoft released long before Windows Server (though I can’t remember exactly when that was).
* I say “Unix”, but though the code originated from Unix, it was never approved to be sold as “Unix” due to some key changes Microsoft made to their OS (IIRC).
Not sure if you missed the original joke or are just expending on it, so I apologise if I’m stating the obvious.
Aahhh… SCO Openserver that is. Ironic, don’t you think?
“Dear Red Hat customers.
Are you aware that you require a patent / copyright indemnity licence from Microsoft for each seat / server running Red Hat Linux? You’ll be glad to know that you can purchase these licences directly from Microsoft for the low price of just $199/seat.
Microsoft is also offering a special Windows migration licence for just $99/seat which includes the latest and greatest Windows 7 Professional for all your business needs and a completely free patent / copyright indemnity licence! Switch to Windows today and see how you can get your work done easier than before!”
If only Red Hat had some sort of assurance program that came with their subscriptions.. Hmmm.
http://www.redhat.com/rhel/details/assurance/
Like everyone else the patent transfer scares me a little, the last thing the tech industry needs is more patent lawsuits. However we don’t know what got transfered, it would be very foolish of attachment to transfers stuff that could be turned around and used against them in a couple years, so lets hope they aren’t that stupid. Or didn’t sign some sort of agreement that only gives them immunity and no one else, that would be just about as bad.
I think they are called Attachmate and not attachment. Just wanted to point that out.
LOL…
Damn it, ever since you pointed out the original poster’s reading mistake, now I keep reading the company name as Attachment! Before then, I always read it correctly. Now I keep thinking for a couple seconds after reading the name, “wait, there’s something wrong…” and then have to correct myself.
It is very similar though, don’t know how or why pointing someone else’s mistake caused endless mistakes the way I read it… I actually remember even misreading the original poster’s “Attachment” as “Attachmate” before. Man, I must be all f***ed up now. LOL.
Edited 2010-11-23 16:10 UTC
Welcome to my world.
Its the typo that won’t die. When I wrote it the first time I actually misspelled it attackmate, but then I noticed the error before I hit post and changed it….to another typo. Also I think this is the most replies a comment of mine has gotten and its over a typo.
I still hope that attachmate didn’t make a deal that curses the industry into another decade over pointless lawsuits. It would certainly bias a good chunk of the industry against them, if you though the boycott Novel crowd is bad now, wait until they actually have something to bitch about. If this move does result in another round of lawsuits of course.
I think it’s a terrible name for a company anyway.
Isn’t this what richard stallman warned about? And it happened quicker than expected, or at least it seemed far off back then.
I wouldn’t count on stuff like mono and gnome not being affected and being used somehow to restrain software freedom, whether it’s Attachmate or MSFT owning it now by proxy.
These guys are all suits, even if they look jovial and have loosened their tie and pulled their sleeves up for the presentation, and they are *only* interested in making money. When will people learn not to trust them?
making money pays the wages. If you dont, your tech can be the best on the market, but you will fail.
Tech industry is littered with such companies, in just a few months we have lost Sun, Palm and now Novell. These were once THE market, let alone market leaders.
That’s the good thing about open source software, even if Novell/Attachmate stops developing/distributing Mono or GNOME, the already released source code will always be there for people to use under the same license.
No one can retroactively change the license on the software people already have.
Parts of Mono do not have free software licenses. Most of it does (most of the framework CLI, C# etc is a standard allowed to be implemented by anyone), but critical parts of .NET, implemented in Mono, have been held back by Microsoft as proprietary technology.
Microsoft/Novel made a deal that allowed Novel to develop Mono and Moonlight … for Novel’s SLED customers. Microsoft still held the rights to the still-proprietary parts of Mono and Moonlight.
I see no reason for Microsoft to want to buy back from Novel rights that Microsoft already owned in the first place.
Dude, I don’t like mono and I know this isn’t true.
The ‘key parts of .NET’ of which you speak are probably the winforms elements and other things that aren’t part of the C# standard.
Those _are_ free software, but they’re not exempt from patent suits, because they’re not part of the C# standard.
MS extended patent-violation protection to any complete C# implementation. I don’t recall if said implementation can or cannot extend the standard (the problem is that their implementation _does_ extend the standard. You can be compliant or compatible).
So, over the past week or so, you’ve been incorrect, vitriolic, and annoyingly persistent.
Is there an equivalent to /ignore?
The code of all of Mono is free software … but there is no patent grant associated with its license.
The technology of most of .NET is a standard (e.g. CLI and C#) is able to be implemented by anyone, and it comes under Microsoft’s open Specification Promise. These parts of Mono are not an issue.
However, there are indeed parts of .NET, which are implemented in Mono, which do NOT fall under Microsoft’s open Specification Promise. These parts are Microsoft proprietary technology. These parts of Mono are an issue.
Releasing the code for implementations of these parts under a free software license does not mean that they are free software. Microsoft has made no promise whatsoever not to sue over these non-Windows implemntations of its proprietary technologies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winforms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asp.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET
Microsoft Reference License is a non-open-source, non-free license.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Reference_License#Non-Open_S…
These are all plain, simple, verifiable facts. There is no smear campaign here.
Edited 2010-11-23 00:20 UTC
HAHAH.
Yeah, because you can’t re-implement libraries.
Only official AT&T Unix has libc!
Well, this point is the very crux of the debate, isn’t it?
Certainly Microsoft’s PR and legal department would want you to believe that you can’t re-implement libraries replicating Microsoft proprietary technologies without a paid-for license from Microsoft.
Who am I to argue?
But, more to the point … why argue? Why not simply shun Mono and use decent alternative applications that are readily available and at least as functional? Much simpler.
They’ve already re-implemented a large portion of winforms etc…
Christ…
well, yes, exactly so. This is indeed the crux of the matter. The Mono code includes open source implementations of Microsoft proprietary technologies such as winforms. We certainly agree on that.
The bit that you may not perhaps realise is that Microsoft wants to be paid for its proprietary technologies. It has even, of late, sought license fees for implementations of its technologies that Microsoft did not write. Going after Tom TOM for an implementation of FAT is a good example. Microsoft did not write the FAT filesystem code in the Linux kernel that TomTom were using (neither did TomTom, BTW), and the Linux kernel is released under an open source license. GPLv2 actually. None of that stopped Microsoft from persuing TomTom.
Winforms in Mono is a prime candidate to become another such a target. Microsoft will ask for money from companies who use Mono (it will probably not go after Mono developers).
Far simpler, cheaper, less risky, etc, etc for companies to simply shun Mono applications.
There are plenty of alternative applications which do not use Mono. Why not simply run them, instead?
Ok, so you’re just gonna pretend that you didn’t say that those parts of mono were proprietary software?
People can look back and see what you typed. You _do_ know that, right?
Ah, my favourite activity: shining a light under the bridge.
Billy-goats should avoid this thread.
I think I have spotted the problem that appears to have caused you to get your knickers in a twist.
I wrote:
You are right, that was not correct. It should read like this in order to be correct:
“Parts of Mono do not have technology licenses which Microsoft would argue are required”.
Mea culpa. The Mono code is indeed released under a free software license, but nevertheless, just like they have argued in the past about FAT in the Linux kernel, Microsoft would argue that this is not sufficient, and that companies need to have a paid-for license from Microsoft in order to run those parts of Mono.
AFAIK, the only way to get such a paid-for license for those parts of Mono is to be a Novel customer and to run Novel SLED. There is no other way to get such a license, they are not offered for sale to users of other Linux distributions.
Why bother? Why not just shun Mono, and run alternative applications? That is the crux of the issue.
PS: Interestingly enough, at one point Miguel stated that he would split Mono into two parts, one part which is C#, CLI et al, which could be used anywhere by anyone for any purpose, and the other part which Microsoft had claims over.
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jul-06.html
This died a very sudden death, and was never heard about again. There is no “split” Mono. In order to run it Mono all, one MUST include the Microsoft proprietary technology implementation parts. Nothing else is offered.
Edited 2010-11-23 01:35 UTC
Again, it’s not proprietary.
It’s patented.
Microsoft would claim you need a paid-for license in order to run it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_%28software%29
Proprietary.
Certainly not closed-source, but still proprietary.
PS:
News from Miguel:
http://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/6732038669340672#
OK, so now it has gone from this:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/whats-microsofts-role-in-the-no…
… and it has changed to a situation where Mono is paid for by an entity funded (at least in part) directly by Microsoft.
This is OK … exactly how?
Edited 2010-11-23 02:25 UTC
*headdesk*
“You keep saying that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
*facepalm* Au contraire, it is you who would appear to be confused.
Proprietary software <> Closed source (not necessarily, anyway).
These are two different terms. There is a great deal of software to which both terms apply (that is, proprietary software which is also closed source), but nevertheless the two terms are not the same.
Proprieatry software means only that there is a commercial license required to run it. Microsoft has made rather an art of open-source-but-still-proprietary licenses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Non-Open_Source.2C_non-F…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Notable_Shared_Source_pr…
Microsoft has even invented a new term for this kind of software, they call it “shared source”. It is kind of a “you can look, but it still isn’t yours, its mine” agreement.
There are quite a number of ways that Microsoft has made it possible for people to view Microsoft source code, but nevertheless have the software itself still require a license for people to run it. This software is therefore not closed source.
However, such software is still proprietary.
Edited 2010-11-23 03:55 UTC
Because you say so?
Guess your afk name must be Webster, since you can change the definition of words.
Au contraire:
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/proprietary-software.h…
Close enough. Note that it doesn’t say “Proprieatry software is closed source”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software
Slightly different, but again close enough. Again, note that it doesn’t say “Proprieatry software is closed source”.
Now for the reverse … “Proprietary Open Source” !
http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2008/02/of-false-dichot.html
Anyway, basically, if you have to pay someone in order to get legal permission to use the software, then it is proprietary. No matter how you got the software in the first place.
Edited 2010-11-23 04:26 UTC
What on earth are you even arguing anymore?
Mono is 100% open and free software. Whether or not a 3rd party thinks they have a patent on something does not make it proprietary.
Microsoft suing TomTom over FAT technology in Linux did not make Linux a proprietary operating system.
If you are talking about the IP (patents) being transferred to the holding company, that has nothing to do with Mono. You might be surprised to find out that Mono is <1% of Novell. Mono’s code and team is going to Attachmate.
You can also infer this from the Miguel twitter post you referenced, which says “our paychecks will come from Attachmate instead of Novell”.
Microsoft themselves would argue with you. Mono is open source, and you can get the source code at no monetary cost, but it is not licensed (from Microsoft). You have no permission from Microsoft to run (some parts) of it that Microsoft would argue that you need a license to run. The only way to get such a license is to pay for Novell SLED (the license is included in the fee for SLED).
This is a part of what the whole Novell-Microsoft agreement was about. This is what Microsoft call “interoperability”. Microsoft will try to get some of their technology into Linux (in the name of interoperability) so that Linux users will have to pay a license fee to Microsoft to run it. So far they have been only very marginally successful. So far, there is no need whatsoever for Linux users to HAVE to run Mono and Moonlight. There are plenty of alternatives to Mono that Linux users could move to in an instant.
No, but TomTom agreed to pay a license to Microsoft for running the FAT filesystem implementation in Linux. Since there is a license paid, that bit of software fits the definition of proprietary software (as far as Microsoft licensing are concerned), even though it certainly doesn’t apply to the entire Linux kernel.
The Linux kernel developers would heartily disagree that a license is required for the FAT filesystem in Linux. They claim that it doesn’t infringe any long filename patents, and they are most probably entirely correct. This doesn’t help TomTom, who were looking at either paying a nominal license fee so that Microsoft could get bragging rights, or going to court costing them a fortune. far easier and cheaper for TomTom to acquiesce, and simply pay up and shut up.
[/q]
Guess the Linux Kernel, every BSD, and basically _any_ OS is proprietary, because nearly all implement FAT32, and you’re still under the impression that MS saying things makes them more true than reality.
I don’t believe they are proprietary. I don’t believe they infringe on any of Microsoft’s IP concerning long filenames in FAT32, because Linux doesn’t write both long filenames and short filesnames for the same file. One or the other, but not both.
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/clever-linux-folk-find-way-aroun…
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/vfat-linux-patch-co…
Microsoft, of course, think differently, and they leaned on TomTom to pay them in order for TomTom to be “allowed”, by Microsoft, to run Linux, which is open source code that Microfot did not write.
TomTom would have weighed up how much cost to pay Microsoft what they wanted versus how much to defend themselves in court. Far, far cheaper to for TomTom to simply pay Microsoft to make them go away.
Successful extortion by Microsoft.
Edited 2010-11-23 04:36 UTC
Weren’t you arguing that it did?
You must be new to trolling, because you’re not very good at it.
Arguing what did what? What the hell are you on about?
PS: For clarification, proprieatry software is software for which the legitimate owners charge money for other people to use the software, via software licenses.
Even though they have been trying to charge people money for using it, Microsoft are not in actual fact the legitimate owners of Linux kernel software, nor do they own any IP in Linux.
Therefore, Linux is not proprietary software, despite the very best enduring efforts of Microsoft to try to make it so.
Clear enough?
Edited 2010-11-23 06:13 UTC
Don’t worry GZeus … Lemar2 is our ANTI-MS troll.
Basically he will pop up on anything that concerns Linux/MS and make long rambling posts.
What he does miss is that MONO is probably one of the best cross platform frameworks … and people shock horror actually like writing software in C# … MONO was created because Miguel saw that Microsofts .NET framework was a really nice library.
I will use anything that is Java or .NET as a framework over anything else because it is better.
Until you remember the legal side is not clear. Java the legal side clear. Use OpenJDK based or Orcale provided and you are fine.
Claims that .Net is better is purely putting head in sand over legal issues.
Besides QML in QT is also turning into a nice cross platform framework. Then mozilla will be releasing a cross platform framework. There is a few common things here. Both are less resource eating than mono.
Besides Miguel has promised us a Legal version of .net only using legally covered bits and not turned up with it. So we are a little bit pissed off. Don’t promise something if you don’t intend providing it.
Until mono can pass the legal department were I am I cannot use it. That simple. Java QT GTK even Vala pass legal. Ok Vala only passes because it produces C files that if Vala was attacked we could stop using Vala and keep on going using the C source files instead.
This is the telling bit. Miguel was challenged to define how Mono users could become legally licensed to use Mono, with Microsoft’s full blessing, without having a license for SLED.
The best that Miguel could do was this:
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jul-06.html
This ONLY applies to ECMA 334 and ECMA 335 specs … namely C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). ONLY those parts of .NET come under the Microsoft Community Promise, nothing else.
It speaks volumes that Microsoft is prepared to allow ONLY those ECMA 334 and ECMA 335 parts of Mono/.NET to come under the Microsoft Community Promise. What about the rest of it?
Miguel made this undertaking:
Miguel utterly failed to deliver on this undertaking.
So, to this day, ONLY the C# and CLI parts of Mono (ECMA 334 and ECMA 335) are safe from legal attack from Microsoft as open source FOSS applications.
The thing is, there is no version of Mono that provides only those ECMA parts. There is no version of Mono that fully comes under the Microsoft Community Promise. Only bits of it do.
This is very, very telling.
The simple answer is to use anything else. Purge Mono from your machines. Using Qt/QML/Qt designer in conjunction with C++ or Python is as good a choice as any.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28framework%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML
Promising newer garbage-collected languages are D and Google Go. Kdevelop and GCC together provide a good development environment, along with git to manage collaborative development.
http://dot.kde.org/2010/10/26/kdevelop-41-brings-git-integration
There is always also Eclipse and Openjdk that one could use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_%28software%29
There are a number of relatively easy routes to cross-platform development, which carry absolutely no threat of being sued for their use.
Shun Mono. Enjoy Qt/QML. Avoid persection and legal attacks. Write good code, that can be easily built for a number of platforms. As the fancy takes you, sell or distribute your code to the widest possible market. Enjoy.
Edited 2010-11-23 12:36 UTC
Miguel actually said they will be splitting it into two parts.
“In the next few months we will be working towards splitting the jumbo Mono source code that includes ECMA + a lot more into two separate source code distributions. One will be ECMA, the other will contain our implementation of ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms and others.”
From here http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/07/microsoft-issues-pate… took me all of two seconds of googling to find that.
So if you are worried about legal issues use the ECMA part. Simple
None of those alternatives come anywhere near .NET and Visual Studio in terms of quality.
Eclipse and OpenJDK … is alright … but is miles behind VS2010 and .NET, and JSP vs ASP.NET … ASP.NET is far easier to live with. Maybe Eclipse, OpenJDK and GWT … but is that even supported?
I only use Eclipse for Android Dev.
KDevelop and GCC on come on … how am I supposed to do web development on this??
Google Go does not have a fully supported Windows Versions and is essentially a beta language. Oh yes … where is my IDE?
Microsoft build better development tools … I have all 5 versions of the .NET version of visual studio (2002, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010) on this machine. Each version is better than the last with very nice language improvements and backwards compatibility after .NET 1.1 (which tbh was a beta language anyway).
Microsoft do something the open source community can’t do … improve.
Edited 2010-11-23 13:12 UTC
The link I provided was from July 6, 2009.
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jul-06.html
What part exactly of my text: “Miguel utterly failed to deliver on this undertaking.” did you fail to understand?
You can’t. There is no version of Mono that includes just the EMCA part. Miguel failed to split it.
Once again, what part of my text “the thing is, there is no version of Mono that provides only those ECMA parts. There is no version of Mono that fully comes under the Microsoft Community Promise” did you fail to understand?
There is no way to install Mono with “only the ECMA parts”. Can’t be done. No such version is provided.
Pfft.
AFAIK you can’t do the equivalent of this six-line GUI Hello World program with .NET and Visual Studio:
… and, even if you could, the resulting Hello World GUI program would only run on Windows.
QED.
Edited 2010-11-23 13:19 UTC
Yes, because we all know that the number of lines of code for Hello World is the sole factor in determining the worth of a development platform.
Not really an issue if all your clients run Windows, or you are writing a web app, in which case it does not matter what the client runs.
Far from it.
I’m just joining this discussion so I can say I don’t like you. I don’t like you at all …
Android-Lighthouse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28framework%29#Tools
Includes:
Qt Eclipse Integration
Why would you do web development on an IDE meant for a cross-platform native programming language? You are seriously confused.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_Creator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_Quick
OK, there is a point there, in that Google Go is still an up-and-coming language. For now, perhaps with your skillset, using the C# bindings and the Qt framework would be a better option for now:
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Languages/Qyoto
Clearly you have never used the Qt framework.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28framework%29#Bindings
Only does Windows. Your apps won’t be cross-platform. Why pay all that money only to limit your potential market?
Pfft. That is a beauty. An absolute doozy.
Edited 2010-11-23 13:44 UTC
Android-Lighthouse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28framework%29#Tools
Includes:
Qt Eclipse Integration
Why would you do web development on an IDE meant for a cross-platform native programming language? You are seriously confused.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_Creator
OK, that is a point, Google Go is still an up-and-coming language. For now, perhaps with your skillset, using the C# bindings and the Qt framework would be a better option for now:
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Languages/Qyoto
Clearly you have never used the Qt framework.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28framework%29#Bindings
Only does Windows. Your apps won’t be cross-platform. Why pay all that money only to limit your potential market?
I want to use Visual Studio … it is better than Eclipse … that is why I choose it … not because I have an ideology that the stuff I use should be free.
Google suggest using Android for Eclipse, so all the help and examples are done using Eclipse, so I will use eclipse.
Visual Studio lets me make web apps and native apps …. somethign KDevelop + GCC does not let me do… however visual studio does and mono as well. That was my point.
As for limiting potential market … If you mean linux which is still less than 1% desktop market share … I won’t bother with that. I might be worried about MacOSX, but I have other options i.e. building the app as a web app or building it using Java.
Why is it an absolute doozy? care to give any examples??
Windows 7 is far better than Vista in terms of UI.
Compare this to open source. Gnome’s UI hasn’t changed in 6 years and still has tons of problems. KDE 3 was pretty good and then they broke everything with 4. Xfce is alright.. nice and fast but then the UI is like using Windows NT 4, I use this on my OpenBSD machine.
Microsoft has delivered with VS & .NET …
LINQ to SQL, LINQ to XML, ASP.NET MVC (seriously nice technology), Javascript debugging in VS2008, Javascript intellisense with javascript libraries that works (incredibly well) VS 2008 & 2010, WCF (makes it really easy to write a web service that can communicated via HTTP, Sockets, and it takes 1 line of code to change your web method so it is REST).
SQL Server Management Studio is miles better than any open source equivalent (and believe me I would like to use a nice database IDE with PostGres).
Give me tools that are bettter than VS2008 & VS2010 and I will happily switch … until then no thanks.
Edited 2010-11-23 14:14 UTC
Big difference is that Linux is not written acording to MSFT specs like Mono. Mono is unlicensed reimplementation of Microsoft .NET. A clone of proprietary tech, and every Mono user expects that Microsoft is king of .NET and by extension, Mono. Most Mono devs are Microsoft fanboys anyways. So what Microsoft says about Mono is important.
Not so about GNU/Linux. They have no right to talk about GNU/Linux. Whenever they say something about it, they are full of crap.
And Linux and BSD are unlicensed reimplementations of Unix.
What’s your point?
Linux and BSD are both licensed. The license ships with the distribution, you can read it if you like. The license for each says that any recipient of the software is granted full permission to run the software at any time in any place on any machine for any purpose. This grant of permission (which is what a license is) is awarded by the authors of the software and hence the owners of all IP in the software.
Linux is an implementation of the POSIX specifications, written from scratch. This is precisely what specifications are meant for, BTW, so there is no problem with this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX
Please stick to the facts.
Edited 2010-11-24 00:07 UTC
Guess what? Mono is released under a free-software license.
Fuck off.
It is free software if it is under a free license. Lack of promises from Microsoft does not make it unfree – it only makes it potentially unsafe to use (in USA).
The rest of us live in countries without software patents and with low risk of ever getting software patents. To us the whole nonsens about mono is just that – nonsens.
That said, I strongly prefer solutions created in C, C++ and python (and whatever compiles to native binaries).
This is fair enough … Mono is not a problem for you, and you don’t prefer it anyway.
This happens to be EXACTLY the solution I would recommend to anyone and everyone. Don’t install Mono, and don’t run Mono applications.
Like so, if you run Ubuntu:
http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/10/10/how-to-remove-mono-from-…
An even better solution is simply to run a KDE desktop.
This way, if you are running if the BSA or equivalent come cap-in-hand to your company asking for a license fee from you for your alleged use of their members’ IP, you can simply say to them that you don’t run any software with their IP in it. Tell them you have no Microsoft software, and no contract with Microsoft. If Microsoft hit you with a lawsuit, you can hit them with a countersuit for extortion and harrasment.
BTW, this comment includes any claim that might be made in the future about Unix IP ostensibly being in Linux.
http://www.itworld.com/open-source/128493/the-end-penguin-not-nigh
Edited 2010-11-23 05:34 UTC
http://www.tmrepository.com/trademarks/dontusemono/
Edited 2010-11-23 10:53 UTC
The ‘C# standards’ you speak of (which is probably the ECMA CLI specifications) are not exempt from being patented. If they are patented, now or in the future, the ECMA simply washes its hands of the standard.
In addition, the CLI specifications within the CLI give you pretty much nothing that allows you to get a practical and workable CLI implementation. Mono had to reverse engineer a certain amount.
I know these things.
I said these things.
Why are you correcting me when I agree with you?
what in “You can be compliant or compatible” confused you?
No you didn’t.
You’re trying to make distinctions between the ECMA standard (which you mistakenly call the C# standard) and the rest of ‘.Net’ which isn’t in there when there is really no such distinction of safety. It is *not* exempt from patent claims as you imply:
I think you confused yourself. The purpose of the ECMA specification is that if you’re compliant then you are compatible and you are covered and that’s what people misunderstand every time about this.
O_o
Dude, I never said Mono was safe. It’s not.
You’re inferring a meaning I didn’t say.
How do you spell ‘assume’?
ECMA is just a standards body, dude. It’s not a standard in-and-of itself.
C# is a programming language. It has an ECMA standard. So does ECMAScript.
You’re being angry at me for things I didn’t say, and _trying_ to twist my words.
You don’t understand the things about which you are talking enough to even undesrtand what I said.
He was claiming that the portions beyond the standard which Microsoft uses and have been re-implemented in Mono are proprietary. They’re not. They’re patented, and not covered by the patent protection ‘promise’.
“compliant or compatible”
Compliant is sticking to nothing but the ECMA C# standard, which does not include winforms et al.
Compatible is what Mono is trying to achieve, which means implementing those libraries, which are patented.
These are simply facts. I never stated anything about “this is safe” or “these codebases have been separated”.
I’m conveying information, not stating any opinion.
Edited 2010-11-23 21:07 UTC
You contradict yourself.
Mono includes C# and CLI, which are compliant with ECMA standards, and which are covered by the Microsoft Community Promise. Fine … for those parts ONLY.
There are, however, inseperable parts of Mono other than the ECMA parts, which are NOT covered by the Microsoft Community Promise. These parts are covered by Microsoft patents. Up to this point, we agree. However, what you miss is the fact that Microsoft requires that anyone who wants to run the non-ECMA parts of Mono must have a license from Microsoft to do so. That makes those parts proprietary.
Since the proprietary parts of Mono are inseperable from the non-proprietary parts, there is no way to legally run Mono without having a license from Microsoft.
These are straightforward facts. Ask any Microsoft lawyer.
Since one needs a paid-for license to run it, Mono is proprietary.
Period. QED.
Stop trying to re-define proprietary.
It’s not working. You’re the only one who thinks that’s what it means.
You’re re-phrasing what I said, and saying I said the opposite.
Either you’re failing at English, or you’re not getting any better at trolling.
Actually he is right, that means proprietary. If Free Software license is not enough and if other license is required, then that other license must be examined too. If that license is proprietary, the program is proprietary.
The problem with Mono is that additional license required from Microsoft is gray area and not talked about. Regular Mono zealot will claim that Mono is free software, and it would be so if there was not patent threat. Then, then you read the ECMA RAND terms and “Community promise”, your head starts spinning. With those implied restrictions (and some explicit), Mono is not Free Software at all. The fact that MSFT is not enforcing restrictions now, doesn’t mean they wont start tomorrow.
tl;dr If you look only copyright part and obfuscate patent issues, Mono is free software. But fact that you are required to get patent license to use Mono (legally) makes it proprietary.
I can’t license your software.
Patents must be tested in the courts to be show to be valid, since no one actually check if applications are for anything valid.
Only the creator of a work can determine how it is licensed.
I’m sorry that I assumed people on an OS-dedicated site would have enough of a grasp of reality to understand that software patents MAKE NO SENSE.
I think of a way to use math to do something, but only in a general, abstract, pseudo-code sort of way.
I send the US government that non-working concept, along with a $10,000us ‘filing fee'(at that price, and since no one checks them for validity I call it ‘bribe money’).
They file my application and send me some papers.
I call up all your customers and demand money.
How does this make any sense?
“You also know how to use math to solve a problem. Give me money because I was the first person to send that equation into the patent office with a ton of money spent.”
Software patents make no sense, and your argument makes no sense.
“Hey, I heard you were selling a product in this area… see… this here’s my turf. You better pay up, or get out!”
Yeah, that sounds like legal activity…
I seriously don’t know where figures like these keep coming from. A quick glance at the USPTO fee schedule[1] shows that the filing fee is $330 for a utility patent and $220 for a design patent. Half that if you are a ‘small entity’ (independent inventor, small business or a non-profit).
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2009september15.htm
Sorry, I was unclear.
I was including what you’d have to pay a patent lawyer to write up a patent using the proper legalese.
suppose you are a developer working on a certain application and putting time (thus, money) into the study of a novel algorithm to maximise its efficiency – say, eg, a new data compression algorithm, possibly based on wavelets
suppose your application (at least the first releases) isn’t exactly polished, since you being more of a researcher than an interface designer, cared more about the algorithm itself
now, wavelets being what they are, mostly any decent coder should be able to quickly enough reimplement your very same compression mechanism (and then add a shiny gui) after desuming it from your implementation
thus avoiding to spend on analysis and research the time and effort it took you to come up with the algorithm in the first instance
thus outcompeting you and your data compression application with an unfair advantage
sw patents don’t make sense only in those fields where the rate of actual innovation is lowest
if you are a programmer/sw house working on actually innovative stuff and not some rehash of that from university /CS classes and books (ie what some call “public domain horizontal knowledge”), innovation you produce is an asset in itself
then, sw patents DO make sense…
Suppose you got paid for time put in on an hourly basis before you started working, rather than working for a while, then assuming that you should get paid for that work whether or not another developer actually used your code (and thus your work).
Society doesn’t exist to put money onto the hands of anyone who think they should have it for something the do. Copyright exists because it was thought to be the lesser of two evils, and the best way to promote the arts. Patents exist to get innovation into the hands of the public, rather than tied up in trade secrets.
Software patents _only_ stifle real innovation, and are really more restrictive than trade secrets, as they prevent the use of the concept whether not the idea is independently discovered.
It’s math.
Math is only useful when applied.
Restricting the application of math simply restricts innovation and hurts society.
I think ‘big content'(who push these laws/interpretations of law) is harming society worldwide on a horrific scale and we won’t know just how badly until long after it’s finally over.
dont know where you live, but here developers are usually paid on a timely (hourly or monthly basis) or when the work is delivered (sometimes a combination of the two), but hardly in advance…
anyway, for a paid developer that would simply move the problem from the individual developer to his employer (the actual owner of the IP that developer creates), wouldnt solve it;
being paid in advance for a single job / contract wouldn’t solve it for a freelance developer working on a cumstomer by customer basis, either – if you are such a developer you ‘d probably want to remain competitive, so that you can keep selling your services to paying customers
having someone else supply the same products (applications) or services as you, but quicker and cheaper (due to being able to reuse existing algorithms – yours – thus saving on design times) is probably the last thing you want
you’ll most likely want to make life as hard as possible for competitors, as long as you plan to remain in that market field (if you move to another field, maybe you wont care anymore – yet again you may keep caring)
or at least that they compensate you for their use of your work (where work includes the analysis and design of the algorithms behind the mere code)
i create something, you want to use it, i set a price, you pay me if you deem it reasonable, or go look elsewhere otherwise.
demand and offer.
what’s wrong with this?
no.
the reason for patents to exist is to let inventors profit from their inventions (either from them being sold to users or used by other parties – with the intentional effect of putting individual inventors/developers and larger companies on equal terms) and second, to foster innovation (exactly by imposing royalties, thus forcing competitors to explore alternate solutions to avoid paying them )
a patent is by definition not a trade secret – in fact an invention shall be published and filed in a database for everyone else to see, in order to be granted a patent
it’s quite different, from, say, the coca cola recipe…
the only thing they prevent is “free” (as in gratis) exploitation of someone else’s inventions, preventing their exploitation / implementation altogether would go against the above primary goal (no third party use -> no royalties) – thus, the use of the concept is actually encouraged, provided implementors negotiate for its licensing
the only problem is for products unable to cover licensing costs (mostly volunteer / hobbyst sw) but, apart from some glamourous cases of trolling and abuse, the system is in effect and works fairly well for everything else software, as is in effect and works everywhere else in the industrial world …
though a sw developer myself, i’m all for free solutions wherever possible (since it goes to benefit the user), but i cannot see reforming a world scale system (patents -> WTO) just to accomodate FOSS – which is like a drop in the ocean, in the grand scheme of things…
a patent is not for simply an “idea”, a patent is for an invention, ie for the application of a particular method to a particular application for a particular problem field
and chances that separate developers come up with the very same application at the very same time, are very slim – most likely it will be one before the other (or similar approach to slightly different applications, or… ), but then the one coming second would be responsible for going on with his work without caring whether something similar exists – which is not excusable
when you work on something you are supposed to monitor what may affect or be affected by it to the best of your possibilities, doing otherwise creates a liability
of course it is difficult, time and money (you’ll probably have to employ someone to look up patents you – the developer – stump on with in the product) consuming, but it has to be done (and in this regard i’d agree if by “patents stifle innovation” you meant “individual developers cannot humanly cope with the corpus of sw patents, much less hobbyst programmers with licensing them” – but the point is, hobbyst programmers are a niche)
and on the other hand, developing products (whatever their cost for the user) is just not for everyone – it is so for chips, it is so for car design and manufacturing as well as trains and aircrafts or whatever else
sw makes no difference wrt the principle
but it’s not like if an application of an implementation (say, hw optimized) of a mathematic method (say, the fourier transform) is patented, then ANY AND ALL applications of that method are patented then unusable in normal life…
moreover, society doesnt generally use applied math (except maybe for homeworks and university thesis), but products implementing applied math for the execution of a specific task (eg filtering an audio signal in a hifi system, or raw pixel data from a noisy sensor in a digital camera)
Ugh.
Thanks for making this nigh-impossible to quote. I had to open in another buffer (Conkeror) and copy… Though I suppose one could blame this on the overly-simple markup…
In advance of the release of the code. You know, while working?
Why would you sign a contract with these terms? It’s the equivalent to how writers were treated in the 1800s, selling stories rather than licensing them.
Don’t do that.
And… thus stifle innovation.
You didn’t create the algorithm. You just decided to use it. Math is a natural phenomenon. You can’t patent physics, why should you be able to patent mathematics?
History fail.
If I re-create the exact coca-cola recipe independently, the coca-cola company can only say “f–k!” and kick the dirt.
If I independently realise that algorithm FOO is good for BAR usage, I can get sued.
eharmony didn’t invent ‘compare two matrices’.
They have a patent on it.
You can’t invent math. You can only discover it.
Don’t want your work discovering it to be for free? Don’t look for them.
That specific hardware can be patented, but the software is still all math, and can be re-implemented in any number of different ways.
Different code can output the same result from the same input. Then they’re not ‘using your invention’. They’re just doing the same job.
So most people are lazy. Why does this mean you should get to prevent them from doing things with math?
And, in fact, we all use math every day.
If you turn your car at anything but a total of 90° at an intersection that is perfectly perpendicular, you will get into an accident.
If you don’t slow your car at X feet per second per second, you will not make the light.
If you don’t change gears at the proper RPM rate relative to the incline of the road and desired miles/kilometers-per-hour you will destroy your transmission.
The fact that you didn’t realise that we use applied maths every day is disgraceful, and you shouldn’t touch technology.
If this continues, eventually everything that can be done with software will be patented and no one will be able to write their own software, or will be forced to write it for only themselves.
They do not make sense, and harm society.
Read a little history about how and why copyright and patents came into being.
You’ve truly missed the point, and obviously voted in some of the republicans this term, or would have if perhaps you just think like the worst of America, but aren’t a citizen.
Edited 2010-11-26 15:06 UTC
first: natural phenomena are events that result from the physical complexity of nature itself, and more importantly, would occur anyway even if man didnt exist on earth to observe them – rain is a natural phenomenon, math is not.
math is a science, and a result of the brain’s ability to handle abstract concepts – thus, math basically exists only in the human brain
second: an algorithm is a sequence of operations that may, or may not, involve mathematical / algebraic calculations – then, an algorithm may usemath, but this hardly qualifies as being math itself…
third: an algorithm is the result of the human ability to do speculative reasoning and plan the steps required to achieve a desired result, after analyzing and splitting the problem at hand – then, it is an individual creation not less than the design of a building or that of a car engine (also made by solving problems, maybe even more at the numerical level)
even more so if one takes into account that a sw application doesn’t usually limit tiself to a single algorithm or a disorganized collection of algorithms – the code base is usually *architected* into an organized series of classes and /or modules each with a specific function, place, and role, and this involves a creative (as in, human creativity) process
fourth:if we assume that math is actually a natural phenomenon, then, the same would apply to mechanics (which is even more closely connected to concrete reality) – thus, the steam engine and the later petrol and gasoline ones were not “inventions”, but “discoveries”, too…
tell it to Daimler and Benz…
you don’t patent the science itself, you’re patenting an application (that may make some use of it) that results from a creative effort on your part
are you so close minded that you cannot distinguish between the two things?
to discover something, it must have always been there, though no one else has seen nor documented it before – like “oh look this weird plant … there’s totally NO mention of it in any existing book or encyclopedia … wow, i made a discovery” – but when you devise an algorithm it doesnt go this way, you conceive a sequence of operations that exist in your mind only but has never existed anywhere else
instead, you’d imply that all the infinite (because they are infinite) algorithms man can ever conceive in the history of mankind, were actually already there, together with all the matter and energy that contitute this Universe – or maybe in the Eye of the Supreme entity (whatever this entity is called) that created it – what about if one is an atheist?
understanding fail (or explanation fail on my part)
of course applied math is part of every day life – but mostly in the form of objects, designed by those with the required knowledge for others to simply use without caring much about the inner working of the object (and even less about the theory behind it)
it’s not that people are lazy, it’s that when you drive (example) you don’t “do things with math”
you simply… drive, using your muscles to actuate the car control, your senses to get feedback, and reflexes trained in by your brain, to react to the environment, car and road condition, with no numerical calculation involved – a human is not a computer, it’s a “fuzzy” operational model so to speak
on the other hand, people designing the vehicle MUST do accurate calculations taking LOTS of factors into the equation (system of), since eg depending on the suspension scheme, slight changes (millimeters) in a joint position or in an angle may greatly design road handling or comfort
see the difference?
who ARE you to tell me what i should or shouldnt do?
as i said elsewhere, there’s a whole world of things, from the soy seed to the aircraft passing by railway control systems, medicals, aso asf, where patents are already in effect, and have been for a very long time
software is just the last fields patents have been applied, and in practice just the tip of the iceberg
objectively, whom do patents affect? ie, who has to care about them?
those who buy and or use products of any kind wouldnt even be *aware* they involve patents (werent it for people like you obnoxiously trying to push their agenda by spreading FUD about how patented products are somehow “evil”, when in reality it makes no difference for them)
only those involved in *designing* those things (be they operating systems or food), have to deal with patents – moreover, many of those actually benefit from them, and would demand them if they didnt exist, so those whom patents may worry the most (as i said before, individual and hobbyst programmers) are relly a subgroup, hardly representative of the whole industrial world (but isnt democracy based on the few accepting the will of the many?) – a bit sad, maybe, but i thought we discussed IT and technologies, not cheerful political correctness…
so, society at large doesnt even perceive patents, much less is harmed by them…
you’d be surprised to know how many patents are in effect in the medical field, to name one – yet, it is all about making devices that help actually contribute to save lives, not exactly harming society in my book…
nothing currently written at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law contradicts what i previously said
“exclusive rights” translates to “rights to exclude others [from taking advantage of an invention]” (notice that when one has the right, it is up to him to decide what to do – it doesnt a priori mean that one will surely enforce his privilege, instead of making some money backed deal) with the stated goal of letting an inventor profit from his invention and the (not written , but desumable) side effect of competitors having to work around to come up with non infringing alternatives (which also accounts as innovation in my book)
which is exactly what i was talking about earlier- but you’ll surely say i’m making things up…
FYI, i’m italian. and how is my political orientation relevant in what should be a pragmatic discussion about technology? and how DARE you make conjectures about what i may have voted?
trying to diminish someone by acting all smart ass with personal offences and arguments completely unrelated to the topic, wont earn you much respect – the opposite i’m afraid
leave morals outside the discussion *** ******* **** *****
IT is a market, and a technology field, as such it’s utterly unagnostic from morals or politics – even more so if it’s all about applied maths as you so conceitedly argumented…
Edited 2010-11-27 15:01 UTC
i AM a better PERSON than than YOU.
And I am BETTER at EMPHASISING things with RANDOM capitalISATION.
I disagree.
The vast bulk of discovery of software algorithms was done with the early mainframes. It was then that operating systems such as Unix and VMS were designed, as well as concepts like NUMA, SMP, sockets, protocols, compilers, high-level languages, hyperlinking, codecs, WIMP GUIs, mass storage hard disk filesystems, etc, etc, etc were invented.
Without the benefit of patents.
There was no need to have software patents back then, when markets were vastly smaller, and yet invention, innovation and progress were far greater than today.
though important and fundamental, everything you mention belongs to the very basics of general purpose computing (or weren’t even born around computing, like the hyperlink, much earlier in fact)
things that , while not obvious at the time they were born, can be rightfully taken for granted nowadays AD 2010 (nearly 2011) – and the fact they’re (in some cases not entirely) unencumbered allows individual developers to, eg make their own hobby os without worry …
but dont make the mistake to assume progress in the IT stopped with the creation of unix or maybe short after – if you just read some ACM transaction issues, you’d discover that from graphics to AI to HCI to whatever, there’s a whole world of application fields where innovation hasnt stopped in the last 15 years – and even accelerates in some cases
just because something doesnt show in the shiny Unity gui, doesnt mean it doesnt exist…
Precisely.
History fail, computing fail, moral fail.
I am not trying to re-define proprietary, you are.
Proprietary software is software for which the owner of the IP in that software requires the users of said software to pay for permission from the IP owners in order to run it. Most often, the proprieatry software users will also be required to enter into a contract agreement (aka a EULA) via which they agree to numerous additional restrictions on their use of the software which are not imposed by copyright law itself.
It is a moderately simple concept, I don’t know why you are having such a trouble with it.
You are literally the only person(?) I’ve seen try to say that free software is proprietary because someone not directly involved claimed to have had the idea first.
You are the only person who thinks this way.
If everyone but you says a word means something, then you are wrong.
You
Are
Wrong
Stop… breathing.
Au contraire, Microsoft lawyers say this also. They required TomTom to buy a license from Microsoft in order for TomTom to use the FAT32 filesystem in the free software Linux kernel.
The fact that this was utterly bogus, and that the free software Linux FTA32 filesystem implementation (which was not written by Microsoft) does not violate any patents held by Microsoft, did not stop the Microsoft lawyers from asking TomTom to buy a license from Microsoft.
Microsoft are desperately trying to turn GNU/Linux into proprietary software. TomTom capitualted because paying Microsoft for an un-necessary license was far easier than defending against a lawsuit that Microsoft were threatening.
Microsoft’s latest venture into this same arena is suing Motorola over Android:
http://wmpoweruser.com/microsoft-sues-android/
Same thing. Microsoft did not write Android.
So you just not only admitted that you think linux infringes and is proprietary software(which you denied earlier) but you just admitted that you’re for microsoft using patents to destroy competition.
This reminds me of the time a guy my friends and I hung out with sometimes suddenly started going off about how “the jews control the government, seriously”.
Real buzzkill.
WTF? Are you on drugs or something? GNU/Linux doesn’t infringe Microsoft patents … Microsoft just wants to extort money by pretending that it does.
I said that Microsoft will try to make GNU/Linux proprietary. That does not mean that it is.
There is a significant effort for most GNU/Linux software projects to specifically avoid any technology that is claimed to originate with patent troll companies such as Microsoft.
Mono, unfortunately, is one exception to this. Happily, it is not at all necessary to run Mono, becuase there are excellent alternatives to Mono itself and everything that depends on Mono. Therefore, in the case of Mono, the simplest and by far most effective approach to protecting oneself against possible harrasment from patent trolls is simply to shun Mono. Problem solved as far as Mono goes.
In a couple of other cases, this is not the most effective thing to do. Two cases which come to mind are Samba networking and FAT32 long filename support. In these cases it is necessary to avoid any specific claims in Microsoft patents, rather than simply drop the functionality, as in these cases it is needed for interoperability.
In Samba’s case, most of the Microsoft IP is protected by virtue of being a trade secret. This is fine, because it means that Samba is perfectly at liberty to re-implement this technology if the Samba project can figure it out. From a court case in the EU, Samba even managed to get some specifications out of Microsoft, and now Samba 4 has Active Directory support.
In the case of the FAT32 filesystem, a large number of USB devices such as digital cameras use this filesystem. If GNU/Linux wants to be able to interoperate with these systems, Microsoft patents must be avoided. Fortunately, Microsoft’s patents relating to FAT involve a method of writing both a long filename and a short filename for the same file at the same time. Reading the filesystem is not covered. This allows GNU/Linux to avoid Microsoft’s patents by simply writing either a long filename, or a short filename, but never both for the same file.
I know it didn’t.
I didn’t say it did or does.
I summerised your post, and compared it to when someone I used to hang with openly admitted to being an anti-semite.
Could you turn down the crazy, and turn up the logic?
You are a bona-fide loon.
Here then is a quote you should enjoy from a fellow loon, one Rob Enderle:
http://www.networkcomputing.com/data-center/novell-no-more.php?p=3
Microsoft has been attempting to get license money from Red Hat. Microsoft did not write a single line of Red Hat’s code base. Red Hat told Microsoft to “go jump”.
Apparently, Microsoft have gone away, tail between their legs, and then sought out another bunch of 882 patents (costing Microsoft $450 million) with which to try to extract money (that Microsoft have not earned) out of the likes of Red Hat, for licenses.
There is no way that Microsoft are ever going to see that amount of investment returned in licensing fees.
Edited 2010-11-24 10:52 UTC
I KNOW WHAT MS IS DOING AND THAT THEY DON”T DESERVE ANY MONEY.
Why are you pretending I said otherwise?
I was insulting you for suggesting otherwise.
It’s not proprietary software.
Both Linux and Mono are free software.
You can’t just _say_ that you own someone else’s ideas, and demand money.
As such, a third party cannot decide that anyone’s code is proprietary or free.
No part of Mono is proprietary.
No part of the Linux kernel is proprietary.
I’ve been saying that the whole time. Any sentence to the contrary has been sarcasm, whereas you continue to say that “MS lawyers would disagree with you” and since they do, they must be proprietary.
MS’ claims are invalid.
You can’t decide which team to troll.
So… give up on life, please.
TheGZeus and Lemur2, you are fighting an amusing fight and you both are tantalizingly close to the core of the matter, but strangely also very far off.
Mono is Free Software. Mono might be (is?) patent encumbered. The problem is not in which label to put on it. The problem is in being encumbered by MS Patents.
For now MS is rattling with their sabers and no precise claim has been brought against a Mono distributor before an American or Japanese court of law. But any patent on .NET technology, not covered under the Open Specification Promise is a potential weapon in Microsofts war chest.
The only thing MS needs to do to shut down Mono, is win one court case against a Mono distributor, by which a substantial and non-OSP .NET (and in extension Mono) patent is validated and refuse to license it in a way that is compatible with the FOSS licenses on Mono. Since large parts of Mono are under the GPL and LGPL V2, they would become instantly indistributable if MS refuses to grant a non-exclusive, perpetual, non-discriminatory, sub-licensable patent grant. Remember, the (L)GPL dictates that every license recipient needs to get the same rights under the license as everybody else without additional restrictions.
Even that isn’t the biggest problem. The problem with the above depends on how many applications on your platform depend on the Mono infrastructure part to be able to run. If it is a grand total of 5 major ones with ample alternatives; who cares. If Mono is the driving part of more than 60% of the platforms applications, it becomes really painful to lose the Mono foundation on which they run.
Even if the loss would only be in area’s where software patents exist. Why would you want to write Free Software that in the future could become unavailable to a large portion of your sub-licensees? Why not avoid this specific risk altogether?
That is why RMS and many others are stating that using Mono for other things than compatibility with .NET Windows programs is unwise.
Precisely.
Thank you.
I agree with this post.
Any claims to the contrary are the act of trolls.
This is so spot on the money that it is worth repeating.
If one simply avoids Mono, and uses instead the perfectly capable alternatives that exist for the half-dozen-or-so Linux applications that depend on Mono, then no amount of possible sabre-rattling from Microsoft over patents related to .NET can possibly impact you.
I have said a similar thing before in this thread, but I’ll quote it again because it is the absolute fundamental point:
Why not avoid this specific risk altogether?
So you just suck at reading and/or logic, because this is what I’ve been saying from the start.
You just get hung up on the new definitions of words you’re trying to push and decide that I must be for what you are against, because I use the accepted definitions…
I greatly dislike you, and hope many bad things happen to you in the future.
Nope. This has been my position from the start. Perhaps it is you who cannot read?
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?450832
I have no idea why you got your panties in such a twist over it, but that is no concern of mine.
You are completely and utterly contradicting yourself and tying yourself in knots.
I didn’t say that you had said that Mono was safe, but you were clearly implying the distinction that so many make between the ECMA ‘standard’ parts and the additional extensions and therefore stating a position whether you like it or not.
It’s a standards body that has currently required Microsoft and anyone else to freely license any patents pertaining to the ECMA standards in question, so yes, right now it is very important.
Why do you keep referring to an ECMA ‘C# standard’? What you are referring to are the CLR and CLI specifications, ECMA 335 and 336 I think, which are not protected by anything but a flimsy RAND agreement right now. Why do you think that not including Winforms in an implementation somehow makes things safe? It doesn’t – and whether you say so or not that is clearly what you are implying. In addition Mono has reverse engineered more than what is in ECMA 335 and 336 to get a working CLR because they have to.
No I’m not. What you’re coming out with is total gibberish. Are you incapable of reading these things? You say you’re agreeing with them and then outright trying to contradict them later and then trying to say you’re not stating a position on anything.
They are not facts, and it’s been explained to you why none of what you have written is accurate – and then you claim you agree with me and then try and contradict things again.
I’ve read the groklaw report.
Have you?
Yes, and they warned us, which they did.
The winforms library et al which has been re-implemented by Mono is not part of the standard.
Without those libraries you are not 100% compatible with .NET.
Those libraries are patented.
The patent protection promise does not cover anything but the C# standard.
You can be compliant (only the C# spec)
You can be compatible (include the extensions)
You cannot be both.
If you are compatible, you are not under protection from a patent suit.
This is basic logic.
It doesn’t matter. Not implementing them does not make anything you produce not patented.
There is no such thing as a ‘C# standard’. There are standards referring to the CLR and CLI. The C# specification itself is not important here.
The patent protection promise protects no one but paying customers which puts it in the same boat. The ECMA RAND agreement that is holding things together can be destabilised and pulled at any time.
How can you be protected from a patent ‘suit’? Filing a suit is filing a lawsuit, and you’re not protected by a lawsuit so that logic is of the tangerine trees kind.
Unfortunately, you’ve failed to understand why this distinction that you keep making between supposed patentable and non-patentable parts just doesn’t exist – and yet you keep trying to restate it for some reason.
from != by
Yes, there is.
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-334.h…
From the page:
In the interests of this discussion that’s not what he’s really referring to. I thought people would have been intelligent enough to pick that up……..as I’d said:
Edited 2010-11-24 17:13 UTC
Um, what was RMS right about?
If the assets in question were sold by one corporation to one or more other corporations, then that means that they were already owned by a corporation. Meaning, it already was the case that the assets in question weren’t public domain.
Edited 2010-11-23 23:54 UTC
Are we going to have to go through all of that again?
Pound to a penny Microsoft bought some integral part as part of the “unspecified intellectual property”
edit: yes I know… to late now
Edited 2010-11-22 22:20 UTC
Paging Pamela Jones … I repeat, paging Pamela Jones.
PJ pontificating on this deal:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20101122130625952
Her suggestion is that it might be about Wordperfect IP.
Edited 2010-11-22 23:16 UTC
PJ also identifies via a tweet from Miguel de Icaza that Mono goes to Attachmate.
This is an interesting outcome for the GNOME desktop given that a number of GNOME applications, such as FSpot, Banshee, Tomboy Notes, GNOME Do and Pinta, are Mono-based.
I can find no reference as to what happens to OpenSuSe.
Edited 2010-11-22 23:53 UTC
Of those programs, only one of those doesn’t have a >= GTK equivalent: GNOME Do.
Probably wouldn’t take a year to re-implement it in some other language. Crap, write a mono program that translates to some other language, and use that as a stop-gap.
That’s just the worst-case scenario: A patent lawsuit happens, MS wins, and there’s no more FOSS C#.
Whoopdie-shit.
Agreed, mostly.
The Mono applications in GNOME that I know about which are frequently distributed are these:
In order, comparable FOSS alternatives which do not depend on Mono would be:
digikam, Amarok, Basket Notes, krunner and Krita.
Personally, I prefer the second set anyway.
I like that this got voted down, probably because I said that there are alternatives.
That wasn’t always the case, and… it’s true.
I’m just relaying information, so you don’t freak out should MS destroy Mono.
You’re welcome.
You possibly got voted down because you claimed (and still claim) that “it wasn’t always the case” that there are FOSS alternatives to Mono applications on Linux.
Actually, it is always the case. There are no Mono applications for Linux for which there are no good alternatives which don’t use Mono.
Every single Mono application for Linux has an at-least-as-good not-Mono alternative.
Linux users simply do not need to run Mono.
Since they don’t need to run Mono, and since they cannot get a license to run Mono legally anyway (unless they run SLED), then why on earth SHOULD Linux users run Mono? There is no possible sane justification.
Edited 2010-11-23 22:05 UTC
I never said any of this.
Don’t put words in my mouth.
I said THERE ARE alternatives, so it’s not the end of the world if Mono goes away.
Stop… typing… forever.
Will be spun off:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7620954743.html
The article you linked says that SLED will be spun off, but it has only this to say about OpenSuSe:
SuSe (a.k.a SLED) <> OpenSuSe.
Maybe some ex and soon-to-be ex Suse employees will be able to rewind the clock seven years and do something useful with it?
Edited 2010-11-23 14:17 UTC
Yer, it means their paychecks are now coming from a consortium of Microsoft controlled companies.
Novell sold WordPerfect to Corel long ago, but Novell still has an anti-trust case against MS from when they owned it. MS may be paying off Novell to end the suit as part of this purchase, but they won’t be obtaining the IP.
No longer then end of 2011. It will be as soon as the ink is dry on this deal.
No where did the Novell-MS deal include a transfer event.
It is going to be fun to watch this play out.
It is not so unspecified, SEC filling tells it all
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/758004/000119312510265964/d8…
“Also on November 21, 2010, Novell entered into a Patent Purchase Agreement (the “Patent Purchase Agreementâ€) with CPTN Holdings LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft Corporation (“CPTNâ€). The Patent Purchase Agreement provides that, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Patent Purchase Agreement, Novell will sell to CPTN all of Novell’s right, title and interest in 882 patents (the “Assigned Patentsâ€) for $450 million in cash (the “Patent Saleâ€).”
882 patents sold to Microsoft, to scare companies who use GNU/Linux in their products.
http://www.the-source.com/2010/11/novells-final-betrayal-800-patent…
It didn’t take long for this thread to turn into a mono bashing parade. Every time Novell makes the news there is all this conjecture on what will happen with Mono and all the usual suspects come out claiming the sky is falling. Meanwhile I continue to use Mono apps and continue to believe that this is a whole lot to do about nothing. Only time will tell but in all the years it has been since Mono was introduced and people started frothing at the mouth about its connections to MS I haven’t once been prevented by MS from using Mono software. “Ah but what about the future” they say. We’ll see. I’m not too worried.
It would be very stupid of Microsoft to prevent you from using Mono now, when nothing of importance depend on it. What would they gain? They would just ruin their carefully set up trap and make no damage in the process.
They are still in the bait faze, switch comes later whem de Icaza realize his dream to base GNOME 4.0 on Mono. When entire user experience depends on Mono. That is they aim of Team Apologista and Microsoft astroturfers all over the internet. Read “Evangelism is War” sometimes. Also you could read this to see how Microsoft operates and how they think of “open source”
http://www.the-source.com/open-source-at-microsoft/
If we all do the right thing and don’t take the bait, “switch” phase will simply never come. Mono will simply fail to get critical mass needed to do any serious damage, and Microsoft will give up; they would go to set up another trap. You would probably say “I told you so, they wont sue” but I wouldn’t mind as long as threat is removed.
What I would hate is seeing situating when we were right like this time, when Novell’s sells its patents to Microsoft. Practically last Novell’s move before it’s death is another treason. That reassures we were right all along but I am not liking it. It sucks to be right sometimes.
Edited 2010-11-25 10:02 UTC
Phase.
Sorry, but that misspelling made me smirk.
I never heard of Attachmate before in my life, but based on what I read on Wikipedia the CEO Jeff Hawn is a complete douche. He and some hired help shot 32 of his neighbor’s bison that had wandered onto Hawn’s ranch, and just left their carcasses to rot, apparently to send a message to the neighbor. He even turned himself in for it. Now that’s the kind of guy I want running my company!
If Microsoft owns the patents for eDirectory (Netware Directory Services) then that effectively rids the landscape of Active Directory competitors. That’s not a good thing.