02.27.09
Novell Spreads More .NET in Mac OS X, Windows, Leads to Patent Trouble
Summary: Novell brings its Mono development tools to proprietary platforms and ignores the TomTom-imposed warning signs.
SEVERAL days ago we stressed that Mono is intended to ratify Microsoft's .NET as a 'standard'. This was the explanation provided by one person and evidence is quite extensive. The following new article from Heise shows that Novell is bad influence not just to GNU/Linux users but also to Mac and Windows developers, whom Novell is trying to lure into .NET using its development framework, MonoDevelop.
A blog post by Mono development team member, Miguel de Icaza, has announced plans to bring a stable version of MonoDevelop to Windows. There is currently an alpha version of MonoDevelop available for Mac OS X.
Since Mono is patent trap to everyone but Novell, this is very foolish and very, very harmful. In fact, now that Microsoft is suing Linux for FAT-related patents [1, 2], it is more than clear ever before that Microsoft can use Mono to justify the same/similar action.
Patent suit tells us why we should shun Mono, Moonlight
Microsoft has shown the world exactly how friendly it is towards open source by going to court to claim damages over patents which have been allegedly violated in an implementation of the Linux kernel. And that’s a good reason why FOSS users should avoid Mono and Moonlight like the plague.
[...]
He was then asked by Mozilla engineering vice-president Mike Schroepfer whether there would be the same protection if one downloaded and then distributed the code for Moonlight
“There is a patent covenant for anyone that downloads [Moonlight] from Novell,” he answered and was then forced to admit that “as to extending the patents to third parties – you have to talk to Microsoft.”
That’s exactly what Microsoft was saying to TomTom before it sued the GPS maker on Wednesday – talk to us and sign a licensing deal. Is that what FOSS users want to do – pay royalties for using software?
[...]
Only OpenSUSE has Mono in abundance – why, Evolution, the default mail program is dependent on it and once you remove Mono, you have to bid goodbye to Evolution as well. But then there should be no surprise about this – Novell owns OpenSUSE, a project which is facing some problems right now.
Novell should really know what it’s doing. As Byfield points out, Novell knows the wrath of patents. Now, if only he didn’t just characterise us as the “anti-Novell lobby”… typo there in “Go-OOO” as well. It’s Go-OO or Go-OO[XML]. There is no “Go-OOO” but there is Go-Mono[nono], which can only hope to be The Real Thing. All of these Novell projects are strengthening Microsoft. █
