[lug] .Net, Mono, multiple languages and patents....

[Neal McBurnett]

This article and discussion has lots of both technical and
lack-of-freedom-related notions on .NET.  A great read.

 De Icaza Responds on Mono and GNOME
  http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/06/1834253

See also the Front Range Unix User's Group presentation by
Tom Cargill from a month ago on the .NET Virtual Machine:
    http://fruug.org/Archive/2002-01/slides.pdf

One important issue is whether Mono will run into patent
problems after years of investment like Samba has.
I suspect so....

Some tidbits from the /. discussion:

Alan Cox Says It Best
by Gryphon on 02-02-06 12:08 (Score:5, Interesting) (#2962648)
(User #28880 Info) [ Neutral ]

Miguel:
> or ourselves. I want to be as compatible as
> possible with the APIs that were published by
> Microsoft.

Alan:
Be assured that the day they decide you are a nuisance the VM will
acquire a patented neat feature that kills you off. Just ask the Samba
people.

(from Alan's reply to Miguel's message)

------------

Microsoft has and will enforce .Net patents
by Anonymous Coward on 02-02-06 13:17 (Score:2) (#2963192)

From Craig Mundie, VP of Microsoft at the O'Reilly Shared Source
vs. Open Source Panel Discussion
(http://linux.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/linux/2001/08/0 9/oscon_panel.html
[oreillynet.com])

Craig: "But look: we're a business, okay? We're in the business of
licensing intellectual property. So if it turns out that in the
future that business says, "Okay, we should license the patents to
people who use that in order to be compensated for the development of
intellectual property," maybe we'll do that. You're always welcome to
come and ask us to license anything from sources to patents. But I
mean, we are a business. We're not --

...

Craig: Well, at the end of the day, if you have a patent, you enforce
the patent if it's valuable to you. And so I think that Microsoft and
other people who have patents will ultimately decide to enforce those
patents.

Brian: Are there any patents that apply or that will apply to
implementers of .Net or Hailstorm?

Craig: I expect there certainly will be. I mean, the patent process
takes a long time.


On Wed, Feb 06, 2002 at 08:58:58PM -0700, Bryan Field-Elliot wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-02-06 at 20:44, Timothy C. Klein wrote:
> 
>     Yeah, I believe Oracle just said the same thing.  Sun better get cooking
>     on something in this game, or they could be facing hard times.
>     
>     Tim
>     
> 
> Definitely true. With Linux taking the OS mindshare away from Solaris,
> and with .Net taking software development mindshare away from Java, it's
> starting to look like Sun's standing all wet without a towel.
> 
> I'm curious if anyone in this group has played with .Net, either via
> Microsoft or via the Mono project?  I love Java and have used it
> exclusively for the last three years, but the .Net CLI architecture is
> admittedly compelling. 
> 
> Personally I don't have a problem with using it if it's capabilities or
> promise of productivity are more advanced than Java (which they may be).
> After all, I've been building Java systems for three years now, on
> Linux, and not a penny has gone to Sun as a result of any of my work (or
> it's use by my clients). I expect that Mono will play out the same way
> with respect to Microsoft - yes, Microsoft invented it, but through
> Mono, .Net/CLI applications can be built and deployed in a way which
> wholly deprives Microsoft of any lockin or licensing fees.
> 
> Any other experiences or thoughts?
> 
> Bryan
>