http://boycottnovell.com/2009/07/01/mono-poll-on-rms/comment-page-1/#comment-69143

Microsoft does not need patents to abuse the market. They already benefit from dotnet/mono adoption by leading the charge on dotnet and running a closed source feature-rich monopoly where their undocumented extensions and bugs create interop issues for challengers. They “should” yield on patents everywhere. http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-07-06-026-35-OS-MS-LL-0003 and http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10280924-16.html .

The new announcement also doesn’t address the patent trolls who buy Microsoft’s dotnet patents. We know two major players from Microsoft’s recent past are major patent trolls. And to repeat, we know Microsoft looks towards patents as a means to fight off FOSS and Linux. They gain by creating as many API/interfaces/specs that infringe on their patents. Third party trolls provide a way around all of these promises of them not to sue.

It also doesn’t address that the mono devs can’t deviate from the required elements of the spec (while keeping the patent pledges) if they thought a different path from the spec (and in conflict with it) would result in a superior approach.

As a special case of not covering extensions, their pledges don’t cover future versions of the ECMA standards, either.

All of these issues are repeatedly brought up on this site. In fact, almost always when I talk about patent issues, I consider that core mono might already be quasi-protected or outright protected through some sort of promise.

With so many weapons accessible, one might think that it is the company’s paranoia (the famous mentality Gates has talked about) which would be responsible for them not having made this move earlier.

And note one more thing. Microsoft’s move (though I still think it is unofficial at this point in time) comes on the heels of people reacting badly to Ubuntu’s mono moves. Eg, http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2009070400635OSUB . Ubuntu has the potential to help mono spread, but only if Microsoft cooperates enough to pacify many developers and people who help Ubuntu spread. Maybe this is just coincidence (I doubt it). Maybe it is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Who knows?

>> What I find interesting is that many people read about RAND etc and chose to look for ways that MS work it to it’s advantage instead of taking it at face value.

I find it interesting that you find this normal behavior interesting.

What does face value mean? If there is one thing Microsoft and its multiple armies of lawyers have done in the past is to exploit loopholes very well. Look at their stock options income tax benefit exploitation/mastery ( http://www.billparish.com/msftfraudfacts.html ). Look at how Gates avoided paying taxes when realizing huge profits from MSFT (near its high point) as he moved it to a vehicle he controls and uses to noticeably help his pharm and software investments (the B&M Foundation) while preserving his principal. Look at what Microsoft did to Spyglass with what was to become Internet Explorer (what loophole! it’s allowed by the contract). Look at how they turned an academic environment that works almost exclusively through full consensus (ISO) into a laughing stock institution shown to be extremely vulnerable to vote stuffing. The list of times and ways in which Microsoft has exploited loopholes or outsmarted their adversaries is very long.

It’s not just Microsoft that takes advantage of loopholes, of course, but they do that quite a bit and quite nicely if they think they will benefit overall. Many would simply call this smart. I mean, if the contract allows it, why not? Even if it is unexpected or was likely to have been overlooked. Even if it is “unethical”, right? [This is a mentality some use routinely to conduct business -- it's especially true of those that feel safe from prosecution or losing market share or sales.]

Hey, didn’t at least one Microsoft exec say that their licensing of the ECMA specs was not compatible with the GPL or something like that?

JohnD, if you cannot figure out why we would not give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, you should watch out because you are ripe for exploitation.

I’ve said before that I believe Mono has always been Free Software that seemed to go further than the ECMA spec, which (until just now) no one knew for sure what the RAND-RF terms were, and I specifically inquired about the ability to comply with the GPL and MS’ unknown terms (which I thought most of Mono has been distributed under for all this time, am I wrong?).

I also don’t really care what MS’ terms are, just that they are publicly known, I’m not a license snob and I don’t even hate proprietary software.

I readily applaud this move, now we have factual info on the licensing and patent issue in regards to the ECMA specs. You can implement exactly the spec, no more no less, and you’re covered. Fine, just want to know the rules.

But, it’s also instructive that no one really knew the rules before today. Or, at least, I find that part interesting.

Miguel pointed to this zdnet article as the prior terms, but I can’t believe he just skimmed over the section that explained just how incompatible with the GPL they were.

Sub-licensing is the stipulation that enrages open-source advocates. If an open-source developer agrees to the license, the resulting implementation cannot be re-licensed under something like the General Public License (GPL). According to Herman, “the field of use (you get a license only to implement the standard for the purpose of conformance) and the prohibition on sub-licensing are inconsistent with the requirements of Sec. 7 of the GPL. Sec. 7 of the GPL says that if you do not have the rights to distribute the code as required under the GPL then you do not have the right to distribute at all. The GPL says you must have the rights to sublicense and to freely modify outside the field of use limitation.

Astute readers will point out that Mono contains much more than the ECMA standards, and they will be correct.

In the next few months we will be working towards splitting the jumbo Mono source code that includes ECMA + A lot more into two separate source code distributions. One will be ECMA, the other will contain our implementation of ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms and others.

Under the Community Promise, Microsoft provides assurance that it will not assert its Necessary Claims against anyone who makes, uses, sells, offers for sale, imports, or distributes any Covered Implementation under any type of development or distribution model, including open-source licensing models such as the LGPL or GPL.

I’m sure there will be bickering and nitpicking about defining ‘covered implementations’ or whatever, but perhaps all the noise reverberating around the community over this for some time actually had a positive outcome.

Perhaps.

Are you deliberately playing dumb ? Michael Tiemann is not your source but he’s only saying he knows something through an unknown source.

And you’ll be right there moaning and bitching because you are what you are.

Please….
You enjoy wasting my time with your predictable piffle lite and you know what I usually do?
Scroll over your posts since you have nothing of value to offer.
You are eet in a different costume. (well, youre not illiterate at least)

Youre raison d’etre is to come and bitch and whine so if you dont want to waste time, dont.
But no, you will be back like a bad rash and still waste your time, then you’ll blame someone else for it.
Sounds like an addiction problem there buddy boy.
Some people are addicted to meth, some to online porn and I guess you can get addicted to Boycottnovell.com as well.

RCL

>> I have some good news to announce: Microsoft will be applying the Community Promise to the ECMA 334 and ECMA 335 specs.

I’m familiar with Michael Tiemann (at least through online presence). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tiemann

>> And this hasn’t got anything to do with the predictability of natural phenomena

The sun example was an extreme case to show that we always place some amount of trust in others and in indirect experiences (hearsay).