nachokb addressed some of the most important points, including the perceived (and real, by design) similarity between .NET and Mono. Remember that SCO marketed its lawsuit to the media by showing UNIX-Linux similarities.

> “people shouldn’t use Mono because
> it infringes on patents”

That’s not the problem. If you want to use them, by all means use it. Mono is a fine piece of software and no doubt it’s useful for many people.

The problem is that there is a seemingly powerful lobby campaign to include it in distributions which are renowned for respecting freedom.

And one of the main problems with patents is the power it gives to established players to influence negatively a market (in billg’s own words, even). Let’s not forget that the real danger of patents is not the ability to shut down products or competitors (which would be too obvious), but the ability it gains powerful players to sow doubt or veiled threats.

On the other hand, the exposure of Mono to specific patents is undoubtedly larger, than, say, the Linux kernel. Of course any software is exposed to stupid patents (that’s what they were designed for, after all). But Mono is specificly a reimplementation of technologies dear to the main monopolist/patent troll. It’s about credibility; if MS says that the LK is violating their patents for some memory management hat trick, they’ve got a lot to prove, and that would only be useful if they went ahead and went to a court (which is costly, even to the monopolist, be it money, PR, time); OTOH, just saying “Mono violates .NET patents” implicitly gives credibility and is easier to sell to the media (and, ultimately, affects the prospects of going to court).

Furthermore, Ubuntu forum’s moderators showing one-sided behaviour by shutting down any mention of Mono which could be remotely interpreted as a negative or even questioning its holyness (while their users vote against Mono) and shouting FUD is troublesome to all of us Ubuntu users.

Sorry for the length…

nachokb

Now, this should really worry you.

Saying “people shouldn’t use Mono because it infringes on patents” is complete garbage, because clearly GNU / Linux infringes on patents in the same way, and also lacks patent protection.

This isn’t true. Just because Microsoft says GNU / Linux infringes on 235 of their patents, doesn’t mean that Microsoft is telling the truth or when it is telling the truth that the patents will hold up in court. Furthermore, no one outside of the Microsoft has a clue exactly what Microsoft is talking about. In the case of Mono, we know that Microsoft does have relevant .Net patents, and that these patents are likely to be of much higher quality, since Mono imitates .net. Also, courts tend to uphold patent infringement charges more frequently when the alleged infringer admits to imitating.

BTW, Groklaw has more overage of this and it adds:

“I think that there’s a major missing element to the list of requirements …, before you can consider using C#, and that is a commitment to ensuring that future standards are based on the same set of promises.

“At the moment, even if all the conditions above were satisfied and it were safe to use C#, there’s no guarantee that it’s not an evolutionary dead-end for FOSS. Languages exist in a context, and they have to change and evolve to remain useful in a changing landscape. But there’s no commitment that I’ve seen from MS to keeping the future safe for FOSS. “

Microsoft says GNU / Linux infringes on 235 of their patents. They have, thus far, failed to communicate what those patents are. They are trying to coerce us into a standstill by making people afraid of touching GNU / Linux either as a developer or a user. That is immoral.

Saying “people shouldn’t use Mono because it infringes on patents” is complete garbage, because clearly GNU / Linux infringes on patents in the same way, and also lacks patent protection. Ultimately, Microsoft wants to sue GNU / Linux users. That won’t stop me, or anyone else, from using it.
This is the case for any software development down the line, too, free or otherwise. The only difference with Mono is it’s a smaller bit of code than the whole of GNU / Linux, so it’s easier to point at it and say “this one product infringes so we should be afraid.” You can’t do that for the entire operating system.

I guess that’s the thing I don’t understand, and I bet I’m not alone. Roy, or anyone else: I would love to see something convincing. Why should I care so much about patents here, but ignore the issue elsewhere? Aren’t we kind of playing along with Microsoft’s scheme here?