.Net On Android Is Safe, Says Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes "With Oracle suing Google over 'unofficial' support for Java in Android, Microsoft has come out and said it has no intention of taking action against the Mono implementation of C# on the Linux-based mobile OS. That's good news for Novell, which is in the final stages of preparing MonoDroid for release. Miguel de Icaza is not concerned about legal challenges by Microsoft over .Net implementations, and even recommends that Google switch from using Java. However, Microsoft's Community Promise has been criticized by the Free Software Foundation for not going far enough to protect open source implementations from patent litigation, which is at the heart of the Oracle-Google case."

Comments

Really??

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's another TRAP!

Squishysoft is smart for a change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has had such a failure of Windows Mobile that not pressing there luck with Android might be the only way they can keep people potentially developing on C#. Lets consider C# is a poor Microsoft Excuse for merging Java and C++ and is as stable on a Windows platform as most poorly coded Java Apps. If Microsoft were to push for a suit Google would laugh and say sure we'll remove it we put it there to pity you.

Free Software Foundation and patent promises

[FlorianMueller]

I've been following software patent issues closely for a long time and I still haven't seen any patent promise that was 100% to my liking. So what the FSF says could also be said about Red Hat's patent promise and many other patent promises and "pledges". The TurboHercules exampled showed how little IBM cares about its patent pledge when it wants to defend its mainframe monopoly. But the worst of all patent licenses is the OIN's patent agreement.

I don't mean to say anyone should trust Microsoft's patent promise blindly, but one should look at the promise in connection with obvious business interests. I can't see how Microsoft would do anything that would run counter to its strategic interest, as a platform company, to maximize developer support.

Re:Free Software Foundation and patent promises

[FlorianMueller]

Microsoft's strategic interests are Windows and Office. Those two cash cows [...]

That reaffirms rather than contradicts what I said: interest in developer support. At least for Windows that's definitely key. So I can see their strategic interest in Mono.

I wish you would stop out spouting that nonsense about TurboHercules. IBM never attacked the open source project Hercules. Let's get that clear from the outset. They *do* have licensing requirements for Z/OS [...] This is no different than Apple's position with MacOS X on their hardware and the licensing position they take.

Anyone interested in the facts can go to this detailed discussion on LWN and search for occurrences of TurboHercules on that page, debunking all of what you just said and a lot more.

Re:Free Software Foundation and patent promises

[FlorianMueller]

We have been over your TurboHercules/IBM BS

I only mentioned it in connection with a patent promise that proved useless, and I gave other examples of patent pledges that don't help.

and not many here bought you line.

Wrong. Some of my postings in that discussion back then got voted up to 4 and 5 before people mobilized the usual 'Groklie' crowd, which then misused its moderator points here (and there was a call over on Groklie to do just that). That kind of mobilization isn't representative of reasonable, unbiased people. Actually it's quite possible that many of the Groklie folks who came over here to misuse mod points were just misguided.

I didn't want to get into a detailed IBM vs. TurboHercules discussion here, so I referred another Groklie fanboy to the most recent LWN discussion on the topic.

Re:Free Software Foundation and patent promises

[FlorianMueller]

Really? then stop bringing it up . . .

It was a short reference to the fact that it demonstrates the uselessness of those pledges. So it was on-topic. But responding in detail to more comments or questions on TurboHercules would have been off-topic, thus my link to LWN.

Another point to remember, all MS would have to do to get around their promise is to sell a .NET patent or two to another company. They would of course get protection from being sued but everyone else . . . soooo sorrrrrry.

Show me even one other patent pledge or promise, including Red Hat's patent policy, where that wouldn't be just the same thing. This isn't Microsoft-specific at all.

The "workaround" you just described would presumably even work for the GPLv3.

Re:Ask the London Stock Exchange about how ...

[obijuanvaldez]

These guys for one. Or these folks. And these people. This is supposed to be very good. Also, these guys. Seriously, you could have just said you don't know anything about the capabilities of .NET in the first place. Or you could have just said nothing at all.

Re:Except C# is an open standard

[fermion]

C# may be an open standard, but that does not mean they will fork it. After all, why did they create C#: so they could fragment the developer market and force developers who wished to stay with MS to use a proprietary product. This is they exact same thing they did with HTML and tried to do with Java. MS will do anything to keep the desktop monopoly. And without MS backing,C# will quickly become a depreciated language.

Java has been stable for 10 years. Java has a number of freely available IDE with freely available documentation. C# and .net has a few IDEs, but one is pretty much stuck with MS IDE and paying huge sums to stay in the documentation loop.

Now, if Google wants to play the 'if I can't control the technology i don't want to use it' game, then let it. We have already seen how well that has worked out for them on the Nexus One, and even for the other Android phones. Building market share by throwing out random phones that a few people buy then throw away is not a long term plan. Google is still quite a closed company, and much of the time any openness is a myth in the same way that lack of vendor-lock in is myth with MS products.