Slashdot Mirror
Rotor: Shared Source CLI
Oink.NET writes "The O'Reilly Network reports on an unannounced BOF session at BSDCon 2002 regarding Rotor, a shared souce implementation of Microsoft's Common Language Infrastructure that currently runs on Windows and FreeBSD. It relies on a Platform Adaptation Layer, similar to Apache's Portable Runtime, that simplifies porting to other OS's. As to the licensing terms, the Rotor FAQ says "Microsoft intends to provide very liberal non-commercial licensing terms and is interested in gathering community input on the design of the license." Wonder if that includes Slashdot community input..."
The existance of a widely distributed "visible-source" version from MS means that developers of Open Source versions have to take special care to document their development. If there's any similarity between Mono or DotGNU and the MS offering, MS can try to say that their code has been stolen.
Note that if MS really wanted independant implmentations then they would just use a BSD license. They're not doing that, and that means there's something sneaky going on. Don't trust them.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
non-commercial licenses (ie, Mono)
For God's sake would you all please stop referring to non free / closed source software as `commercial'? Not only is it simply incorrect there are many Open Source / Free apps produced for commercial benefit (eg, Zope) and many non-commercial apps with non Open Source licensing (eg, much Windows `freeware').
Why is it that people (not referring to the person I'm replying to, just Slashdot in general) claim they care about Free Software so much and have never read The Free Software Foundations list of words to avoid. I imagine the OSI would shaare this vview.
Long live commercial software, as long as its Open Source!
This is quite intentional and not a laughing matter.
"Embrace and Extend" means Microsoft has an imperative from way up high to subvert anything it perceives as dangerous. This includes weakening de facto standards (made a lot of people code for MS Java) or somehow take over the very concepts we use to think about our environment.
This is very dangerous when the environment is based on agreement by a lot of people as to virtual standards. Ultimately a Microsoft brand name would be planned in such a calculation to completely replace common features of the landscape. Or did you think they would allow "http://" to remain in the Address bar forever?
This is a seedy corporate tactic and unless we refuse to feed our brains with Microsoft drivel we have only ourselves to blame. They've still got plenty of acronyms to go..
Are you fucking crazy?
same old story? sure, this is what every company in existance does: invest, develop, collect. If all your company did was invest and develop then you'd see your cash dry up in a hurry and your investors leaving south even quicker.
It's simple economics, why does nobody on slashdot seem to understand these things? Maybe 'cos the only economics they've ever had to deal with involve getting stuff for free... tanstaafl.