MS .net vs Mono, Open Source

vinsci writes "Sometimes, reader comments to reporter-written stories are just as good as the stories themselves. Such as David Mohring's comment yesterday on ZDNet.com's story Mono & .Net: The odd couple. Since Microsoft are now using their licensing terms to stop GPL and LGPL free software, it would be a welcome sign of free software maturity at Microsoft if they actually resolved the Mono issue. The gist of his comment: 'Microsoft's CEOs have made it 'patently' clear that they intend to restrict competing .Net implementations by cultivating Microsoft's patents, [...] Mono also implements parts of .NET that have NOT been submitted to ECMA and ISO standards. Those parts of Mono lack even the protection for IP infringement with re-implementation that ISO documentation licensing implies. [...] There [are] those that claim that .NET is open to re-implementation, but until Microsoft make a simliar public legal declaration to Sun's JSPA, any .NET re-implementation represents a pending legal mindfield.' While on the subject of C# development, users of the GPL'd C# development environment SharpDevelop may also want to try Eclipse together with the Open Source Improve CSharp plugin for Eclipse. Eclipse also support C/C++ these days using GCC and GDB, thanks to the CDT. There are about two hundred add-on plugins available for Eclipse. Eclipse itself is available for many platforms, including Linux with native GTK 2 support."

Comments

...if the comments were insightful, that is.

[ajp]

Microsoft has already written .NET for another platform (Rotor, for BSD.) And Microsoft has communicated with Miguel many times with regards to Mono. An interview with him on the topic is hosted on MSDN! This does not appear to be a prelude to a lawsuit.

What's the news item here? Fear-mongering about the Evil Microsoft? If you're worried about big companies with riduculous patents ruining society, worry about Amazon.

Re:...if the comments were insightful, that is.

[Kunta Kinte]

Microsoft has already written .NET for another platform (Rotor, for BSD.)

Yeah, and there was also Internet Explorer for Solaris, look how long that was supported.

And Microsoft has communicated with Miguel many times with regards to Mono

Why not communicate to the rest of the industry as to their intentions?

An interview with him on the topic is hosted on MSDN! This does not appear to be a prelude to a lawsuit.

An interview does not make a legal contract either.

Why send so much time and effort with no legal protections? All Mono has is the apparent "good will" of a company known for being overly aggressive to the point of breaking the law on occasion.

And that's not much!

worry about Sun patents, not MS patents

[g4dget]

I have yet to see anybody identify Microsoft patents that are essential to ECMA C#, CLR, CLI, or .NET implementations. The one or two patents Microsoft likes to parade around are general patents pertaining to distributed systems. Even if they were to hold up in court, they would have no specific effect on C# implementations. And, given when ECMA C# was published, there can't be that much hidden in the pipeline. Furthermore, if, by some obscure legal twist they did threaten Mono, they'd also threaten every Java implementation in existence. An additional protection against patent issues with C#/CLR/CLI is that Microsoft was required to disclose patents that affect the implementability of the standard as part of the standardization process. And not only was Microsoft required to make such declarations as part of the standardization effort, so was every other ECMA member (which, I believe, includes Sun).

Sun's patents are much more worrisome as far as I'm concerned. For example, patent number 6,477,702, held by Sun, would seem to be infringed by any conforming Java implementation. And Sun has pulled out of every and any process that would have required them to make a declaration or commitment on patent and IP issues related to Java. Furthermore, while Sun PR likes to talk a lot about openness, I have yet to see a legally binding declaration by Sun that would guarantee that third party implementations of Java may use Sun's patents.

I don't trust Microsoft any further than I can throw the entire stack of printed MSDN documentation (which is to say, I don't trust them at all). But, all things considered, I think the risk of patent infringment claims from Microsoft over Mono are very slim indeed. All that hot air from Microsoft CEOs and Microsoft PR folks doesn't change that. Sun, on the other hand, holds known patents that could create real problems for any non-Sun Java implementation.

If you are very worried about patent problems, there is a very easy solution: don't use either Mono or Java--there are plenty of other languages a round, many of them better. If you are slightly worried about patent problems, then Mono looks like a safer choice to me than Java. And probably, you don't really have to worry about patents with either of them.

MS patents (all patents) are a potential problem!

[manyoso]

Really folks, patents are a problem to Free Software in every project. No Free Software project is immune to these kind of concerns as well as other complicated interactions with corporations. Look at Samba which is every bit as susceptible to MS patents as Mono. Or how about OpenGL which has problems with corporate concerns. Sun has patents on Java. At least Microsoft is bound to the ECMA patent policy which is basically RAND with required disclosure.

Another important thing to understand is Mono isn't the only Free Software project out there that is implementing the ECMA standards. DotGNU/Portable.NET has a large par t of the ECMA specs implemented and the design goal of PNet is ECMA not the rest of MS's .NET infrastructure ie, System.Windows.Forms, ASP.NET, ADO.NET. The wine project is another area with every bit the risk that Mono faces.

So the conclusion to draw from this is: Patents are a danger to Free Software in every direction! Not just this one particular project...