10.14.10
Mono as a Whole Appears to be a Patent Trap
Safe like tobacco
Summary: ECMA-compliant Mono is not easy to identify, which puts it at odds with Microsoft’s MCP (Microsoft Community Promise)
MANY things can be said about Mono 2.8, none of which is that it’s popular. It barely received coverage this time around, except perhaps from a couple of notable places. Additionally, Mono applications were sort of promoted by OpenSUSE folks (community managers) some days ago, bearing in mind that Mono promotes .NET and Novell, not GNU/Linux. Some Mono-based programs are already outside the boundaries marked by Microsoft's MCP and this new article suggests that Mono as a whole may be in no compliance with the MCP and therefore the whole of Mono is a patent minefield, based on Microsoft’s statement. Consider this:
There have been fears among free and open source software community members that Mono could prove to be a patent trap and this statement from De Icaza confirmed that people were right to entertain such fears – after all if he had boldly gone beyond the ECMA specs, he could well have incorporated code that violated patents belonging to Microsoft.
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Blogger Jason Melton, who follows the progress of Mono much more closely than I do, said that at least one vocal Mono supporter “has said that they will not separate the portions and have abandoned plans to do so, because ‘people would just complain anyway’.”
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I haven’t asked either De Icaza or Novell about the release of the ECMA-compliant Mono source – neither will respond, of that I’m sure. De Icaza only deals with journalists who are willing to swallow his spin. The same applies to Novell.
Will Novell and Microsoft step up and clarify? If all the above is true, then Mono is a patent trap as a whole, not just parts of it. Mono, Novell and Microsoft apologists love to just mock, daemonise, intimidate or at best ignore those who point out the obvious. █
