For the record: In Ecma’s own words:
http://www.ecma-international.org/activities/General/presentingecma.pdf
“A proactive, problem solving experts’ groupthat ensures “high speed”publication of international standards;
Offers industry a “fast track” to global standards bodies, through which standards are made available on time;
“Pay one price and participate as much as you want”

Also about Ecma and its “solid” patent policy:
http://www.noooxml.org/ecma-humour

Ecma has become just a “standards mill”, it just has as pay-for-seal-of-approval business model, just as some fake universities are degree mills.

Moreover Microsoft only grants patent permissions on demand and on unprecise RAND terms. Of course for Microsoft, the only reasonable thing is extorting anyone to pay patent royalties for using its secret “IP” (Whatever it means, I’m sure any Microsoft lawyer will state that the GPLv3 is discrimainatory and non-reasonable or otherwise they will be sacked ipso-facto)
There you go:

http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Ecma%20PATENT/ECMA-334%20&%20335/2001ga-123%20&%202002ga-003.pdf

http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Ecma%20PATENT/ECMA-334%20&%20335/2001ga-123%20&%202002ga-003.pdf

I think it is good to have an alternative implementation not controlled by a single company of any programming language, but at the same time, letting a patent-ridden language framework, over which Microsoft “reserves the right to sue” developed by mimicking one of Microsoft star products (.Net framework) be inserted into fundamental components of the most powerful competitor of Microsoft core cash-cow (Gnu/Linux) while downplaying the importance of the threat of software patents is, at best, a terribly shortsighted idea, no matter how nice, easy, comfortable or even technically superior mono C# framework is… Microsoft is using mono as a Trojan horse, once it has been inserted deep in the core of fundamental components of Gnu/Linux distros and enough widespread, they will sue anyone not caving to their IP protection racket: remember software patents is the only one bullet left in Microsoft’s gun against Free Software.

Did I say that somewhere? No Sir!. Hmm, I wonder why you “felt” so attacked by what I wrote about EEE (nothing anyone who has a clue about MSFT strategy does not know) so as to “conditionally” (if/then) insult me. I really wonder.

I’m going to explain this as clearly as I can.

If you think anyone who disagrees with your point of view is a Microsoft employee, then you’re mentally unbalanced with delusions of grandeur.

By definition it cannot apply to software, particularly that software which MS does not have full copyright interest in.

I suggest Wikipedia’s article to brush up on what EEE actually means.

1. Microsoft contributes a little;
2. Microsoft claims it is a friend of open source;
3. Microsoft then ‘extends’ open source to its own advantage.

That’s how EEE works.

If you can’t differentiate between “good” and “bad” at such a basic level, and instead judge by the name of who’s contributing, then you cannot hope to increase freedom.

It’s a PR thing, at least in part. There are many reasons for Microsoft to either pretend or genuinely demonstrate participation of the kind it offers, but none of them serves freedom or anything but the financial interests of Microsoft shareholders. The company has very many reasons to do this, some of which are:

1. Starve GNU/Linux as the underlying platform for popular Free/open source applications like Apache.
2. Elevate protocols that are platform-specific, DRM-ready, patent-encumbered and susceptible to disruptive (sometimes undocumented) changes by a vendor with shady history and strategy in this particular area.
3. Embellishment of public image and blurring of difference in philosophies, which leads to confusion and brand dilution (e.g. how “Open Source” is a program that only resides in a proprietary cocoon?).

A visit from J000000rg isn’t something I’d wish on anyone. Not even you. Hell, not even Balmer.

I made the mistake of filing a bug against cdda2wav once.

It’s part of a pattern of recent articles about Microsoft not competing with Free so… errr… I should say “open source”, shouldn’t I?

@ jo Shields:

Don’t bring Jörg Schilling into this. I don’t need him triggered to come here.

So what relevance does that article have at all? What does it demonstrate about Microsoft’s behaviour that we should beware of?

It’s about subtext, man!

A bit like Joerg Schilling insisting that GPL and CDDL were compatible and that RMS was wrong, because a Sun employee winked at him once in a conference

Second, no free software license can protect against patent trolls. That’s fundamentally impossible.

Third, it doesn’t need to list the patents. The authors give you the licenses needed; they cannot sue you.

Give it up; it’s a free software license.

“The Patent Poison Pill

What happens if you file a claim regarding a patent implemented in the
work? The MSPL section 3B says:

That is, if you initiate legal action against any contributor to the
work regarding a patent which the work may infringe, your right to the
patents of that contributor (under this agreement) go away.

Set aside that commentary for a moment. The Apache 2.0 license (again
section 3) is much more strict:

If you file a claim (even in response to a claim) that the work
infringes on one of your patents, against anyone, not just a
contributor, you lose this license’s grant of patent usage.

Now neither
license offers any protection against patent trolls who
don’t use the software at all, but adding such language to any OSI-approved
license is difficult. (Such language would likely overreach the scope of
the license and offer no protection.) However, it’s interesting to see how
anemic the MSPL is.

Suppose I, as an individual, contribute to a work licensed under the
MSPL. A company which uses the work decides that my contribution infringes
upon one of their patents, and files suit against me. Under the terms of
the license, they no longer have an implicit right to any patents I hold on
the work.

The problem is that I don’t hold any software patents. As an
individual, it’s likely that I never will. Worse, I don’t even have to be a
contributor. I could even be a mere user of the work, and a likely
target. (It’s even more fun to point out that even if you receive MSPL-licenced
code from Microsoft, they can revoke their patent grant immediately and file a
claim against you. You might get some traction with estoppel, but the license
language isn’t that strong, and a SLAPP that gets thrown out
eventually is still painful.)

If I had contributed instead to a work under the Apache 2.0 license, all
patents held by all contributors–revealed or not–are on the line. Note
also that the target of the legal action does not have to be a
contributor to the software. The target can be completely
independent of the project. The target doesn’t even have to use the
software.

With a patent protection clause as anemic as MSPL 3B, I wonder why even
bother adding it to the license. Though I don’t really believe it’s this
useless as part of some sinister master plan, I think it demonstrates that
Microsoft still doesn’t understand that there’s no distinction, in terms of
our licenses, in the FOSS world between users, contributors, and
companies.”

It’s really incredibly sad that you cannot accept contributions to the free software community for what they are, though. The article you link is a great example; MS are contributing HBase code into Hadoop.

What’s wrong with that? Is it written for an MS platform? No, it’s Java. Is it under a non-free license? No, it’s under the Apache license. Is there a patent problem? No, there is a clear patent grant.

So why exactly should we be worried about this? And specifics, please, not more FUD.